Memories of a frightening day

In the beginning, news about an earthquake in the Indian Ocean way out of the seacoast of Sumatra impressed nobody: Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia. A few hours later Antara News Agency reported several dozens of casualties in Aceh, a province in the northern part of Sumatra. Around 11am, worrying reports started to arrive – not dozens but hundreds dead. The embassy immediately sent a cable to Moscow, suggesting that the government of the Russian Federation should express condolences to the government of the Republic of Indonesia. I still had an uneasy feeling. What puzzled me was that various sources of information that we were checking provided conflicting figures.

On the one hand, it was not a surprise. Aceh was under martial law, and limited access to information about situation in this province did not seem strange. On the other hand, however, the Internet was full of breaking news of disasters in the South of Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives while experts were discussing the magnitude of the earthquake and how high the tsunami waves were. The map also suggested that something very bad could happen to the people of North Sumatra – the west coast of Aceh was so close to the epicentre of the earthquake that avoiding the tsunami tide for the majority of the local population was simply impossible. By evening blood-curdling statistics, though still not reliable, were more than convincing. The embassy urged Moscow to be prepared to provide humanitarian assistance to Jakarta if the Indonesian government asked for help. Only weeks later we learned that Aceh had suffered the heaviest human losses – 166,334 people died within minutes or even seconds. 

The last days of December and the first days of January were a busy period as the embassy engaged in operational planning with the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Defence and BAKORNAS (National Committee on Emergency Coordination). The challenges lay not only in logistics – the airport in Bandar-Aceh and all the roads in the province had been destroyed. The authorities had to make a difficult decision to open up the once restricted area of “special operation” against the insurgency to foreigners and to set up a clear-cut mechanism to manage the aid, both national and international. It took a while to sort out the problem. 

In other countries hit by the tsunami, things worked faster. In Sri Lanka, for example, the Russian EMERCOM rescue team landed as early as December 27. On December 30, the first plane owned by the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia flew from Moscow to Phuket, delivering 3 tonnes of drinking water and evacuating more than 80 persons of various nationalities back to Russia and Europe.

Finally, on January 7, 2005, a Russian flight arrived in Medan from where the aid was carried to Bandar-Aceh by helicopters. Within one week, the Russian army deployed a military field hospital in Aceh, which worked there for 40 days, seven days a week around the clock. Every week, two diplomats from our embassy travelled to Aceh on a rotation basis and stayed there from seven to 10 days. Since all of them spoke Bahasa Indonesia, they were indispensable in helping our military doctors with translation and performing other duties. My ambassador and I remained in Jakarta coordinating the operation with Moscow and the Indonesian government. In the field, it was really hard but in Jakarta we were not idling either. Sometimes, we even had to sleep in the office.

Our colleagues did a great job here in Thailand, too. Immediately after the tsunami, several embassy staffers rushed to the South to search for Russian tourists who were not registered alive (10 Russians lost their lives) as well as to render necessary help to Russian tourists (about 900 persons) who were affected by the catastrophe. From January 7-9, four charter flights delivered humanitarian aid to Phuket and evacuated up to 100 Russian citizens. During the first five days, the “hotline” of the Russian embassy in Bangkok answered more than 2,000 calls a day. I would also like to pay high tribute to the Thai government, all authorities concerned, members of the business community and public at large for providing high level of coordination for rescue works, organising within days express help to those who survived and supplying them with all necessary means.

All in all, Russian emergency planes brought to the tsunami-stricken areas of Southeast Asia more than 200 tonnes of cargo. About 20 tonnes of Russian wheat were allocated for Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka through the World Food Program. The Russian government donated US$22 million to various humanitarian relief funds designed to overcome the catastrophic consequences of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. Together with the cost of field hospitals, medication and food supply, our contribution amounted to over $33 million. But what was not less important – our rescuers, doctors, nurses and diplomats gave everything they had, from the bottom of their hearts, to help the people in need.

Ten years have passed, but I remember December 26, 2004 as if it was yesterday. A frightening day. We must do everything so that a similar disaster does not happen again. Russia has come up with an initiative to establish a Global Crisis Centre Network to streamline standards and procedures of effective emergency interaction in an on-line regime. Instead of playing political games, we must strengthen international cooperation. When nations fight, people die. When they cooperate,  lives can be saved.