Blog 2/9
The flight from Medan is under and hour and on approach to Banda Aceh we circle three times and we can clearly see the large areas of tsunami destruction along the coast. It reminds me of the pictures of the nuclear destruction of Nagasaki - flattened and leveled.
All my baggage arrives except the box of 1,000 feet of network cable we need to for the VSAT communication post. Garuda airlines say the airplane was overweight and they had to leave some baggage behind. I believe it since I was 130 pounds overweight myself.
We drop my baggage of at the house I’m staying at and we proceed to the VSAT internet café located on the grounds of the UN compound. This is opening day and tsunami relief agency workers are beginning to come and use the broadband connection. The speed we’re getting over the satellite link is really good and the voice-over-IP phones have a very clear voice connection.
After we close down the internet café, we drive through several of the areas of Banda Aceh that were hit by the tsunami and the devastation is shocking. Rubble is everywhere. Twisted re-bar sticking naked out of foundations is witness the enormous force of the water. Who knows what still might lie below?
The reality of this disaster is made real as we experience a 6.3 after-shock that night that sends people in a panic; exiting there homes and running toward higher ground.
The flight from Medan is under and hour and on approach to Banda Aceh we circle three times and we can clearly see the large areas of tsunami destruction along the coast. It reminds me of the pictures of the nuclear destruction of Nagasaki - flattened and leveled.
All my baggage arrives except the box of 1,000 feet of network cable we need to for the VSAT communication post. Garuda airlines say the airplane was overweight and they had to leave some baggage behind. I believe it since I was 130 pounds overweight myself.
We drop my baggage of at the house I’m staying at and we proceed to the VSAT internet café located on the grounds of the UN compound. This is opening day and tsunami relief agency workers are beginning to come and use the broadband connection. The speed we’re getting over the satellite link is really good and the voice-over-IP phones have a very clear voice connection.
After we close down the internet café, we drive through several of the areas of Banda Aceh that were hit by the tsunami and the devastation is shocking. Rubble is everywhere. Twisted re-bar sticking naked out of foundations is witness the enormous force of the water. Who knows what still might lie below?
The reality of this disaster is made real as we experience a 6.3 after-shock that night that sends people in a panic; exiting there homes and running toward higher ground.
posted by Dave Ketcham at 2:48 AM
1 Comments:
Good to see you made it in ok!
-bry-
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