Aceh

MEULABOH, Indonesia - Four days after the killer tsunami swept away a large portion of this city of 30,000 people, aid is only beginning to arrive. The death toll is unknown, but according to military estimates there are 4,000 bodies and 7,000 missing. The quake and tsunami were known to have killed many in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and relief efforts had begun in greater earnest there. But Meulaboh, the city closest to the quake's epicenter, was the question mark. For days after the disaster, no one could reach the city, even by helicopter.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Two weeks after the tsunamis hit, the official death toll continues to rise, topping 150,000 yesterday as bodies were uncovered during the huge cleanup on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. At the same time, however, the international aid effort seems to have found its legs. Major relief efforts often become "chaotic," said Pat Johns, the emergency response coordinator for Catholic Relief Services, but "this time, it's going well." And the World Health Organization said that no major disease outbreaks have been reported in the crowded refugee camps housing survivors.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - An 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the northern coast of Sumatra late yesterday, killing hundreds of people, authorities said, and triggering panic and mass evacuations in coastal areas leveled by the tsunami in December. Several countries issued tsunami warnings but withdrew them after no giant waves appeared. Experts said the undersea quake triggered waves 4 to 12 inches high in different parts of the Indian Ocean. The island of Nias off the west coast of Sumatra was reported to have suffered the greatest damage from the temblor, with numerous buildings destroyed.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An American human rights activist and terrorism expert said yesterday that she had been ordered to leave the country within days because of a complaint lodged by Indonesia's intelligence agency about her work. Sidney Jones, the Southeast Asia director of the Belgium-based International Crisis Group who has written groundbreaking reports on the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network, said she had not been informed of the charges and remained uncertain why she was being deported.

In some ill-fated stretches of Indonesia's Aceh province, the ocean roared inland as far as 10 miles. Elsewhere around the Indian Ocean basin, the line of damage extended only a few hundred yards from the beach. Why the difference? Indonesia's proximity to last weekend's 9.0 magnitude earthquake clearly contributed to the roiling "wall of water" estimated at more than 30 feet high that swept through the provincial capital of Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra. But scientists say a number of geographical features also can help to either dissipate or focus a tsunami's enormous energy and determine how far and how fast it surges ashore.

LHOKNGA, Indonesia - For five days, the three friends walked across a 95-mile wasteland of death and destruction. Living on coconuts, cassavas and noodle packets that they found along the way, they hiked along the west coast of Sumatra through 150 villages that had been reduced to rubble by Sunday's earthquake and tsunami. They swam across 15 rivers where bridges had been washed away. They passed more bodies than they could count, including some that had lain in the tropical sun for so long that they had burst.

A 21-year-old Navy photographer from Ellicott City survived the crash of a helicopter ferrying help for tsunami victims from the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Banda Aceh airport in Indonesia yesterday without serious injury. Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob J. Kirk, whose photography and compassion for tsunami victims were featured in an article in The Sun yesterday, called his father early yesterday after the accident on Sumatra that injured two servicemen. "He just feels really banged up," John Kirk said.

THE Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this weekend in New Zealand must press Indonesia to allow peacekeepers into East Timor and to keep its pledge to respect the territory's referendum for independence.No one is proposing that an uninvited force would fight Indonesia. What APEC members do threaten is a withdrawal of world efforts to lend and invest the world's fourth-largest nation out of its recession. That is a formidable coercion.But in refusing, Indonesia -- or its army calling the shots -- has a powerful defense: its own fragility.

BANGKOK, Thailand - In her first major speech as president of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri presented the outline of a cure for the country's many problems yesterday, stressing stability, human rights, fiscal responsibility and a battle against corruption. "Our multitude of crises certainly cannot be overcome all at once," she said. "Only by working together can we gradually emerge from this time, which has been very painful for us all." As she did in naming a moderate and professional Cabinet last week, Megawati surprised her critics by taking a workmanlike approach that addressed misgivings people have had about her. When Megawati took office three weeks ago, after the collapse of the Abdurrahman Wahid presidency, her views were largely unknown, though she was a familiar figure in Indonesian public life.

IN THE MUCH-neglected category of good news, please include the traveling road show of ex-presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Their weekend tour of tsunami-devastated South Asia was an excellent use of the talents of two elder statesmen, which may have benefited each of them along with their cause. The former Republican president and the Democrat who ousted him from the White House used their celebrity to remind the world that the need for aid in the wake of that horrifying natural disaster is huge and will remain so for many years.