Suffering Adds Up in a Hurry In Survey of Tsunami Survivors
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 15, 2005; Page A01
CALANG, Indonesia -- For two days this week, an Australian doctor and his Acehnese assistant knocked on every 10th door in Calang, a seaside town on Sumatra island that was decimated by the Dec. 26 tsunami. At each house, they asked the same brief questions, thanked the residents and departed after about 10 minutes.
What they learned in their bare-bones, random statistical survey, conducted for the International Rescue Committee, was chilling.
Before the tsunami, 8,700 people lived in Calang; now, that number is 2,500, and a third of those are displaced from other towns. Sixty-five percent of households have had a death in the immediate family. Twenty-two percent have taken in orphans, usually more than one. Only 8 percent of the population is younger than 5, and 85 percent of those children have had diarrhea in the past two weeks.
The survey, conducted by Richard Brennan and his assistant, Kamaruddin, has provided the most precise look to date at the tsunami's effects on the people living in the worst-hit part of the worst-hit country.
