Indonesia was the first country to be seriously affected by the earthquake and tsunami created by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on 26 December 2004, swamping the northern and western coastal areas of Sumatra, and the smaller outlying islands off Sumatra. Nearly all the casualties and damage took place within the province of Aceh.The time of arrival of the tsunami was between 15 and 30 minutes after the deadly earthquake.
According to the country's National Disaster Relief Coordination Agency, 250,000 people are dead and 37,063 are missing.[1] In addition, the UN estimates that 655,000 people are homeless and sheltering in scattered refugee camps across the province.
Fifteen thousand troops, who were in the region to fight the insurgency, were dispatched to render assistance and to search for survivors. However, many soldiers and their families were themselves killed. Three days of national mourning were declared. The Indonesian government declared the local provincial Acehnese government as totally crippled (many local politicians based in Banda Aceh were killed when the tsunami struck the city) and declared that all administrative control would be handled directly from Jakarta.
The unmanageably high number of corpses strewn all over the cities and countrysides, limited resources and time for identifying bodies, and the very real threat of cholera, diphtheria and other diseases prompted emergency workers to create makeshift mass graves. One of the most urgently required supplies were bodybags.
