Aceh's coast from the air

I haven't said much about this, but this is what Aceh looks like as you're flying down the coast in a helicopter.  The most dramatic thing is to see the (formerly) populated areas that were wiped out by the tsunami.  There is only a little evidence of what was there before -- vague outlines of streets, a lot of foundations with no houses left, and here and there a part of a building that for some reason withstood the force.   Now, in June, you are starting to see tiny little settlements of tents and shacks springing up in these places, as well as some evidence of commerce re-starting as people set up little kiosks and other small businesses.   But it must be very lonely at night, living in a tent in a tiny community on large plains that were once entire neighborhoods and now are almost nothing.

One notices dramatic things, like a coal barge still connected to a tug boat, and both of them now on dry land, straddling a road.  One notices the coastal road, completely gone in some places, and in other places, steel bridges that once crossed rivers and valleys, and have been twisted like pretzels and deposited randomly further inland.

The first time I saw all of this in early February, I also noticed how wet the coastal land looked, witrh lots of areas that were obviously once dry land (as indicated by trees and skeletal remains of buildings) now under shallow lagoons of water.  I thought that would dry up, but now in June, it still looks like that.   The reason is that the entire coastline has changed; the island of Sumatra actually sunk with the earthquake that accompanied the tsunami.   It is obvious now that many of these areas will eventually be swallowed up by the sea; as the waves continue to lap at the edges of soggy land covered with vegetation that is now dying all over the place.   In places where the tsunami didn't rip trees right out by the roots or snap them like twigs, the large dose of salt water has now caused them all to die, and so dying trees are everywhere.

It will take a long time for the coast to adapt to its new shape, and for now the land, covered with dead and dying vegetation and pools of murky water, just looks damaged.