This is a personal account of an Australian photographer's experience covering the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The writer shares his vivid memories of the aftermath, the challenges of accessing the affected areas, and the profound impact of the disaster.
Trudging across the stinking, sweltering wasteland I see a small scurrying figure sifting through the crushed remains of homes. A little boy wipes his face and looks up at me, a wispy-bearded white man with a camera. I photograph him. He goes back to looking for something – it could be his family, or food. In the distance, smoke plumes rise from a city starting to burn after a mortal wound.
The tsunami, like a titanic bulldozer, has pushed its way kilometres inland, with destroyed buildings and ships acting as its blade. This is a recollection of my experience covering the Asian tsunami as an Australian photographer in Banda Aceh. Other photographer friends who also covered this horrific disaster in Indonesia included Mike Bowers, Kate Geraghty, Dean Sewell and Mick Tsikas. Jason South fromIt was a pretty big deal – 230,000 people died in the end. However, for me, it started on Boxing Day. The two picture editors on at the time were Andrew Meares and Dan Adams. The first earthquake at the tip of Sumatra was recorded as a high 8Bodies lie in the streets of Meulaboh.We came to the opinion that the reason we weren’t seeing anything was because Indonesia had been hit so hard they weren’t able to get stuff out. So Mearsey told me to pack my bags and I was on a flight to Jakarta that night. The next day I managed to get to Medan in Sumatra, the closest viable airport. Somewhere in Medan I was pickpocketed and lost my credit card, so I was down to $US500 in cash. I met with Lindsay Murdoch, our correspondent out of Thailand. Lindsay had managed to find a light plane headed to Meulaboh, which was further south-east down the coast from Banda Aceh. The little 12-seater two-engine aircraft piloted by a German was making a voluntary flight with food and water. Dodging cattle and huge cracks in the tarmac, we made a hairy landin
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