After the red eye flight from Delhi to Singapore, a four hour wait, quick hop to Medan in Indonesia it was good to be getting closer, though getting more nervous at what I would see. Getting off the plane I was asked if I was an aid worker – no, media. I thought that life would become difficult but immigration, travel permit to Aceh province and press card where issued all in about 10 mins.
Leaving the airport I bumped into the crew leaving Banda Aceh and heading home. My plane was delayed a couple for hours so it was good to chat with them. Finally our plane got clearance to land at Banda and off we went. When we arrived there was a storm over the airport and we had to circle over the coast. This gave us all a good view of what had happened. From afar a first clue but nothing really compared to what we would see on the ground.
From up here you can really see the scale of the devastation.
Zoomed in over the same spot
Not having any idea where we were staying – knowing it was basically camping it was good to see we were in a big house- taken upstairs and shown our area – the hallway in amongst the salvaged bags of goods from the owners shops. Dry, safe – the building didn’t seem to have any structural damage – it was dark though – didn’t seem too bad.
