Arya News - Local government officials on Sumatra have called on the national government in Jakarta to declare a national emergency to free up additional funds for rescue and relief efforts.
ACEH TAMIANG – Residents in Aceh Tamiang climbed over slippery logs and walked for about an hour on Saturday to get aid, as the death toll from floods and landslides that hit Sumatra this month rose to more than 900 people.
The death toll from the cyclone-induced floods and landslides across three provinces on Sumatra, including Aceh, rose to 908 people on Saturday with 410 listed as missing, official data showed. The storm systems also killed about 200 people in southern Thailand and Malaysia.
Survivors in Aceh Tamiang, on the northeast coast of Sumatra, walked for an hour on Saturday, scrambling over scattered logs and passing overturned cars to reach an aid distribution centre set up by volunteers, they told Reuters.
Volunteers handed out clean clothes and brought in a tanker truck of fresh water so people could fill plastic bottles, Reuters witnesses said.
Dimas Firmansyah, a 14-year-old at an Islamic boarding school, said access in and out of Aceh Tamiang was cut, and that students had stayed at the school for a week, taking turns to search for food and boiling and drinking floodwater.
“We stayed for about a week there,” Dimas said, urging the government to come to the area to see the calamity themselves.
Local government officials on Sumatra have called on the national government in Jakarta to declare a national emergency to free up additional funds for rescue and relief efforts.
Earlier this week, President Prabowo Subianto said the situation was improving and current arrangements were sufficient.
Starvation looms
Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies in “waist-deep” mud. However, starvation was one of the gravest threats now hanging over remote and inaccessible villages.
“Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh,” he told reporters. “People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That’s how it is.”
A woman hangs up clothes she just washed amidst the devastating condition caused by the flash flood that struck the area in Aceh Tamiang, Aceh province on December 6, 2025. Ruinous floods and landslides have killed more than 900 people in Sumatra, officials said on December 6, with fears that starvation could send the toll even higher. (AFP/YT Hariono)
Entire villages had been washed away in the rainforest-cloaked Aceh Tamiang region, Muzakir said.
“The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea. “Many villages and sub-districts are now just names,” he said.
Aceh Tamiang flood victim Fachrul Rozi said he had spent the past week crammed into an old shop building with others who had fled the rising waters.
“We ate whatever was available, helping each other with the little supplies each resident had brought,” he told AFP. “We slept crammed together.”
Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal said he felt “betrayed” by the government, which has so far shrugged off pressure to declare a national disaster.
“This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures,” he told AFP, echoing frustrations voiced by other flood victims. “If national disaster status is only declared later, what’s the point?”
Analysts have suggested Indonesia could be reluctant to declare a disaster, and seek additional foreign aid, because it would show it was not up to the task. The government this week insisted it could handle the fallout.
A drone view shows a mosque and a boarding school in an area affected by a deadly flash flood following heavy rains in Karang Baru, Aceh Tamiang, December 6, 2025. (Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
Halt on companies
Green groups blame deforestation linked to mining and logging for amplifying damage from the floods, and Indonesia is investigating companies suspected of clearing forests around flood-hit areas.
The environment ministry said it has temporarily halted the operations of the suspected companies, and that it will require them to perform environmental audits.
The companies include North Sumatra Hydro Energy, which runs the China-funded 510-megawatt hydropower plant in the Batang Toru region of North Sumatra, and miner Agincourt Resources, which operates the Martabe Gold Mine, also in Batang Toru.
Aerial surveys reveal land-clearing in Batang Toru that may have exacerbated the flooding, the environment ministry said.
North Sumatra Hydro Energy did not immediately respond to a query sent on LinkedIn. Agincourt Resources did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.