Indonesians plea for global help

PENGIDAM:

Nurlela Agusfitri has nowhere to turn after losing her home and business to devastating floods that wreaked havoc on her Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing more than 1,000 people.

Nearly three weeks since the massive deluge ravaged the island, 40-year-old Nurlela picked her way barefoot through uprooted trees and debris, as victims and civil society groups clamoured for international aid.

The latest government figures issued on Tuesday put the death toll at 1,030 people. Another 205 remain missing in the aftermath of one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit Sumatra's resource-rich Aceh province, the scene of a killer tsunami in 2004.

Nurlela said she had fled with her two children as the water lapped around her house in Pengidam village, where she used to run a kiosk selling goods like cooking oil and sugar.

When she came back, there was nothing left.

"I saw my house destroyed, swept away by the water. My belongings were scattered everywhere," she told AFP.

"I cried when I saw it. Oh God, it was so difficult for me to build this house. Where will I go after this?" she asked.

Despite the efforts by the Indonesian government, frustration is mounting over sluggish relief efforts which has fuelled demands on Jakarta to declare a national disaster and permit international assistance into affected areas.

Before the waters came, dozens of families in Nurlela's village relied on palm oil plantations and livestock farming for a living.

But now the landscape has completely changed: wooden logs and mud have buried the village, and homes and palm oil plantations are gone, an AFP reporter saw.

Villager Cahyo Aulia, 31, said his house was flattened by wooden logs.

"People don't even recognise the boundaries of their homes around here," the plantation labourer said.

In the provincial capital Banda Aceh, student groups and civil society organisations gathered outside the local parliament on Tuesday, demanding swifter action and greater mobilisation of national resources for relief efforts.

Organisers said that a national disaster declaration, which the government has so far resisted, was needed given the widespread damage.