Banda Aceh: Northern Shore before after

[Wilber_Stool]

Nothing to say.

[Squatch]

1. The rejuvinating ability of mother nature is incredible

barrier islands, such as the outerbanks, are constantly on the move yet, people build houses on them.

[nostamj]

2. it was those two pictures which inspired this.....

Banda Aceh, Indonesia -- Airborne military patrols scoured inaccessible sections of Sumatra island Thursday and discovered that swaths of land are inundated and that roads, villages and bridges have vanished. After helicopter flyovers, rescuers estimated more than 80,000 deaths in the region and described the scene as catastrophic.

"The scale of devastation is huge, bigger than imagined," said Emil Agustiono, a government official helping coordinate the Aceh relief effort.

a village in Aceh province

In a village in Aceh province,
There are no words,
There are no stories,
There is no one to speak them,
From this village of Aceh province.

In a village in Aceh province,
There is no one to remember,
The maps of homes and neighborhoods.
The gossip and myths and the names of neighbors--
Lost to a village in Aceh province.

In Aceh province,
A place that always was there
Is there no longer.
A contraction, a redacting,
Of elemental indifference.

A village once part of the province of Aceh,
Drowned in the greater din of death that day,
Must be mourned--nameless--by strangers.

December 31, 2004

[Kolesar]

3. Long Island got bisected during a big Atlantic storm

Waves cut through the island near the Hamptons. The government rebuilt the isthmus with a lock gate for vessels to pass through.