INDONESIA: Lives changed in seconds

Her name is Rose and we met her high in the hills north of Padang, a bustling south-east Asian city on the west coast of Sumatra.  In the late afternoon of Wednesday 30th September a 7.6 earthquake struck the city resulting in scores of broken and destroyed buildings, with 800 confirmed dead and a likely estimate of thousands more.  Most international attention was focused on the city, but high in the hills another tragedy was unfolding that changed for ever the lives of people like Rose and her family.

Weakened by the frightening movement of the earth, as the quake took its devastating course over a period of just over a minute, there are many hundreds of places where whole sections of the mountains slid down, leaving great brown scars that stand out viciously against the gentle green of the dense tropical forest that covers the whole area.  Roads, houses and even whole villages were swept away down the mountainside, leaving no possibility of escape for those caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For Rose, with her two daughters and her younger sister, they escaped with their lives. Not so her mother and father, who were in the part of their house that literally fell off a cliff.  From the outside it is clear from what remains of the house, that it was well maintained and carefully kept; yet this couldn’t prevent the tragedy that befell the family on that hot and humid afternoon on the last day of September. 

The sense of grief was palpable.  Set alongside the confusion and bewilderment that result for ordinary people when their lives are caught up in catastrophic events, there are no words, except in prayer, that can be spoken and have any meaning.  In a few seconds, that family’s whole world was changed for ever.  Those aspects of their lives that all men and women naturally seek – a secure home; neighbours who care; a community in which to belong – are gone, swept down the mountainside in an horrific outburst of violence which must have seemed like the end of the world.

One man we met described the earthquake as like “the movement of a bird”.  It was as though the very ground itself was “flapping” and as the intensity increased during that terrifying minute, everything became out of kilter and a chaotic world suddenly came into view.  For the 900,000 residents of Padang, it was an overwhelming moment.  For them, the threat of earthquakes is ever present and most were used to the dangers of living on one of the world’s most unstable fault lines.  Perhaps that is why, a mere five days after this latest “shake”, when we arrived in Padang the immediate impression was of the usual bustle and busyness of any south east Asian city. 

But by the time our plane landed it was dark and only in the fresh morning light of the following day were we able to fully understand the devastation and chaos that had been caused.  Houses seemingly picked up by a giant hand amazingly still standing, but now at crazy angles; all the floors of apartment blocks frighteningly concertinaed like a sandwich; cars, walls and gateways crushed beneath huge pieces of concrete. 

The overriding feeling engendered by an earthquake is one that completely overwhelms.  Maybe that’s why after a few hours the sight of ruined buildings and broken streets almost no longer shocks.  There is a sense in which the human mind cannot take on board and even begin to understand such overwhelming chaos and therefore starts to block it out.  Even to think about the people whose bodies are still trapped under piles of rubble and to try to imagine what they must have felt in their dying moments is beyond rational thought.  And so to try to get back to some degree of normality, to try to get on with life again and restore the known is probably unsurprising and indeed the only way forward.

The Bible has some insights into even these most acute and extreme situations.  As ever it is the Psalmist whose moving words epitomise the comfort of knowing that even in the most extreme situation, the Lord God Himself is there with His “ever present help in trouble”.  In Psalm 46 the challenge is not to fear “though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea”…..of course it is hard, indeed impossible, not to fear when “the mountains quake with their surging”.  And yet the message rings out loud and clear, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble”. 

Before we left, we were able to quietly pray with Rose and her sister outside their ruined home.  Those are the only words in that kind of situation that can mean anything to those who have suffered such grievous and sudden loss.  Only trusting in Him, within such tragedy can strength be found to carry on.  Please pray for the people of Indonesia, who yet again have had to go through another earthquake, that in all probability will not be the last, living as they do in such an unstable and fragile region of the world.