Meulaboh ( Jawoë: ملابوه; or ''Moulabouh'') is the capital of

West Aceh Regency West Aceh Regency ( id, Kabupaten Aceh Barat) is a regency in the Aceh special region of Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra. The regency currently covers an area of 2,927.95 square kilometres and had a population of 173,558 at the 20 ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

Geography

Meulaboh is about 245 km southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a ...

province. Meulaboh is located in the western part of

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

island.

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake event

"The casualty rates in Meulaboh defy imagination," said Aitor Lacomba, Indonesian director of aid group

International Rescue Committee The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in ...

. "Tens of thousands need immediate assistance there." A damaged airstrip was cleared, enabling

International Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

medical teams from Japan, Spain and Singapore to begin treating survivors. Red Cross engineer Sara Escudero said "There is a strong smell of putrefaction and, whilst body retrieval has commenced, it can be assumed that there are still hundreds, possibly thousands of bodies remaining underneath the debris". The Red Cross said it would use Meulaboh as an aid staging post for the Sumatran west coast. The government of

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

deployed two helicopter landing ships there. The town was largely devastated, with around 80 percent of buildings destroyed and at least 10,000 dead out of the town's population of 50-60 thousand. Only 23,000 people could be accounted for a week after the tsunami, although many were not accounted for as they were not in refugee camps, but resided in deserted houses.

Climate

Meulaboh has a

tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest climate, humid tropical climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southe ...

(Af) with heavy to very heavy rainfall year-round.

References

External links

DigitalGlobe analysis of Meulaboh tsunami images. (For reference only. PDF 1.08 MB)
Populated places in Aceh Regency seats of Aceh {{Aceh-geo-stub

Geography

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake event

Climate

See also

References

External links