REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PIDIE JAYA -- Children's rights activist Seto Mulyadi said here, Wednesday, that Aceh's children who were victims of the 6.5-magnitude earthquake are strong and able to recover quickly from the disaster that hit Pidie Jaya District, Aceh Province. "Aceh's children have great resilience; they will quickly recover (from the disaster)," Seto Mulyadi, who is also Chair of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission, stated during his visit to Pidie Jaya on Wednesday.

Popularly known as Kak Seto, he has been at ground zero of the earthquake site since Dec 7. He was amazed at how the local children were able to recover from the disaster when he saw them laughing and playing hand-in-hand. "The disastrous experience has made them strong," Seto remarked.

On December 26, 2004, the region was hit by a strong earthquake followed by a tsunami, which caused the deaths of 200 thousand people. Natural disasters such as earthquakes have become familiar to local children in Aceh, so immediate disaster trauma care is very important, Seto noted.

The treatment for disaster trauma should be conducted as early as possible to prevent post-traumatic stress in the survivors, he stressed. The commission has provided some psychotherapy treatment to the children of Pidie Jaya through games and fun activities. Local authorities reported on Tuesday that at least 83,838 residents were displaced by the earthquake.

Some 101 people were killed, 134 severely injured, and 532 lightly injured by the earthquake, which occurred on the morning of Dec 7 at 05:03 a.m. local time. Official data showed that some 11,668 resident houses, 61 mosques, 161 shop houses, dozens of schools, and several local administration buildings were damaged by the quake.

The epicenter of the quake was on land, at 5.19 degrees northern latitude and 96.36 degrees eastern longitude, at a depth of 10 km, some 18 km northeast of Pidie Jaya. The earthquake had no tsunami potential but did cause extensive damage as it was generated by a strike-slip fault movement, according to Gayatri Indah Marliyani, a local expert on earthquakes.

A strike-slip fault movement means a horizontal shift of the ground under the sea took place as opposed to a sudden vertical shift, so there is less risk of a large displacement of water triggering a tsunami. The Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics Agency recorded at least 74 aftershocks of lesser intensity after the earthquake.

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