ACEH TAMIANG, Indonesia (AP) — Emergency crews raced against time on Friday after last week’s catastrophic floods and landslides that struck parts of Asia, killing more than 1,500 people. Relief operations were underway, but the scale of need overwhelmed the capabilities of rescuers.
Authorities said 883 people were confirmed dead in Indonesia, 486 in Sri Lanka and 185 in Thailand, as well as three in Malaysia.
Click to Gallery
A survivor holds a cat as he walks at an area devastated by flash flood in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
Survivors carry relief goods at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
Survivors take shelter at a makeshift hut at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
A survivor carries relief goods at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
A survivor carries a bag of salvaged items at an area devastated by flash flood in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
Many villages in Indonesia and Sri Lanka remained buried under mud and debris, with nearly 900 people still unaccounted for in both countries, while recovery was further along in Thailand and Malaysia.
As the waters recede, survivors find the disaster has crippled their villages’ lifelines. Roads that once connected the cities and districts to the outside world are severed, leaving some areas accessible only by helicopter. Transmission towers collapsed under the weight of landslides, plunging communities into darkness and causing internet outages.
In Aceh Tamiang, the hardest-hit area in Aceh province, infrastructure is in ruins. Entire villages in the lush hills district lie submerged beneath a thick blanket of mud. More than 260,000 residents fled homes once on green farmland. For many, survival hinges on the speed of aid as clean water, sanitation and shelter top the list of urgent priorities.
Trucks carrying relief supplies crawl along roads connecting North Sumatra’s Medan city to Aceh Tamiang, which reopened almost a week after the disaster, but distribution is slowed by debris on the roads, said the National Disaster Management Agency’s spokesperson Abdul Muhari.
An Associated Press photojournalist described widespread devastation in Aceh Tamiang after flash floods tore through the area, with cars overturned and homes badly damaged. Animal carcasses are scattered among the debris. Many residents are still haunted by the 2004 tsunami that devastated Aceh and killed around 230,000 people globally, with 160,000 in Aceh alone.
On a battered bridge spanning the swollen Tamiang River, families found shelter under makeshift tents of bed sheets and torn fabric.
A survivor there, Ibrahim bin Usman, cradled his grandsons on the muddy ground where his home once stood. He recounted how floodwaters full of logs hit his house and the houses of his children and his siblings, forcing his family of 21, including babies, to cling to the roof of a warehouse before being evacuated by a small wooden boat by fellow villagers.
“Six houses in my family were swept away,” he said. ”This wasn’t a flood — it was a tsunami from the hills. Many bodies are still buried under mud.”
With wells contaminated and pipes shattered, the floodwaters have turned necessities into luxuries.
Resident Mariana, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians, broke down in tears when recalling how she survived as water surged into her village on Nov. 27. “The water kept rising, forcing us to flee. Even at higher ground, it didn’t stop. We panicked.”
The 53-year-old widow said she and others eventually reached a two-story school, but survival was grim: there was no food or clean water. "We drank floodwaters after letting it settle and boiling it. Children drank it too," said Mariana, whose home was flattened.
A clothing trader in the village of Kampung Dalam, Joko Sofyan, said residents had no choice but to drink the same water that destroyed their homes as they waited for aid, causing children to fall ill.
“My house is just rubble now,” said Sofyan, a father of two. ”We need food, medicine, and clean water urgently.”
While some relief has trickled in, survivors say they need household equipment to cook food.
Frustration is mounting: “Why isn’t there a public kitchen? We have nothing left,” shouted Hadi Akher to the crowd as rescue workers struggled to maintain order among long lines of hungry villagers near a truck full of aid supplies.
Akher, who was bare-chested like most men in flood-hit areas due to lack of clothing, blamed deforestation for worsening the disaster, accusing local officials of corruption.
“This deadly floods happened because too many officials here are corrupt," he said, causing the crowd to grumble.
Karmini reported from Jakarta. Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed reporting.
A survivor holds a cat as he walks at an area devastated by flash flood in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
Survivors carry relief goods at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
Survivors take shelter at a makeshift hut at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
A survivor carries relief goods at an area devastated by flash flooding in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
A survivor carries a bag of salvaged items at an area devastated by flash flood in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island, Indonesia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Smithsonian museum exhibit about the maritime journey that millions of Africans were forced to take across the Atlantic to slavery in the Americas will change later this month, when a remnant from one of the first sunken slave ships ever recovered is taken off display in Washington.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture says a timber piece of the slave ship, the São José-Paquete de Africa, on display in its “Slavery and Freedom” exhibit, will soon be prepared for a trip back to its home museum in South Africa.
The 33-pound (15-kilogram) timber piece has been prominently displayed — seemingly suspended over a dark void, a ballast at its side — as part of a loan agreement to the museum since it opened in 2016. The agreement, examined by The Associated Press, was initially five years and then was extended another five in 2021, ending July 1.
The ship remnant will be among several items sent back to the Iziko Museums of South Africa later this year. Because of its delicate nature, a special crate has to be built for its transport.
Other items from the ship, including the ballasts that served as counterweights for the human cargo, are remaining on display and will be returned to South Africa in two years. A manifesto of the cargo on the ship will replace the timber piece.
The last day for museum visitors to see the timber piece on display is March 22.
The São José, a Portuguese vessel bound for Brazil with more than 400 captives from Mozambique, struck a rock and sank in December 1794 off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Half of the people aboard perished. Survivors were resold into slavery in the Western Cape, according to the Smithsonian.
Recovered in 2015, the ship was identified and studied through the Slave Wrecks Project, an international network of institutions that confirmed it was associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The ship is among the first known wreckage of such a ship that was recovered, in which enslaved Africans died.
The São José piece is in the lowest public level of the museum and is part of the larger “Slavery and Freedom” exhibit, which focuses on the slave trade, including the ships and conditions of transport, as well as artifacts, such as shackles.
The exhibit addresses the Middle Passage, an especially fraught part of the Atlantic Ocean crossing where many of the captives died. While there is no exact count, the number of people who perished during the journey is in the millions, according to Paul Gardullo, the assistant director of history at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The alteration of the slavery exhibit comes at a time when any changes related to history and the American story at federal parks, museums or other public spaces are being scrutinized. President Donald Trump's administration has focused on putting the U.S. in a good light as the country prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The displays, exhibits and programming of several Smithsonian museums are under review as part of an executive order signed in March 2025 by the Republican president, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the institutions named in the order.
Michelle Commander, the museum's deputy director, told the AP the exhibit change is entirely related to the loan agreement but understood the timing might raise questions.
“That’s why we’re being transparent in this moment, because we are aware that there are those kinds of questions,” Commander said. “But, as we’ve said, this is really about the conservation needs of that item.”
As part of the loan, Gardullo said, the South African government has a robust cultural patrimony law that dictates how its artifacts and historical materials are treated and how long they can be loaned out.
“The wooden materials are more fragile, and they need a little more close care,” he said.
Recent visitors to the National Museum of African American History and Culture spoke of the power of the display with the slave ship timber, unaware that it would be altered shortly.
Lines wait to enter the darkened gallery, entitled the Middle Passage, where there is a solemnity as people study the dark space where the timber sits next to a ship's ballast. The tangible nature of the exhibit takes it out of textbooks and into reality, said Krystina Hernandez, who was there chaperoning her 7-year-old son’s schoolmates.
Anehtra Reynolds, from northern Virginia, was emotional as she exited the area. She said the presentation, including the artifacts and the darkness of the gallery, gave her a “piece of what they felt in terms of their misery.”
“I think there was a sign in there that mentioned there were some slaves who starved themselves to death in hopes that they would, when they died, they would be returned to their land,” Reynolds said.
Jim Carnes, who was in Washington visiting family from Birmingham, Alabama, said he was familiar with much of the information because he has worked in civil rights education in Birmingham and Montgomery, two places central to the nation's civil rights history.
“The artifacts are extraordinarily powerful,” he said, adding that he's left feeling sadness and anger, not just at the conditions of the enslaved people but at the current push by the federal government to “deny this ever happened.”
Jorge Carvajal, who is originally from Colombia but lives with his wife in south Florida, said seeing the exhibit silenced the stereotypes, especially that Black people are unreasonably angry.
“Empathy is what I’m trying to say. This will help people empathize a lot more. I mean, at least you would hope,” he said.
Commander said the staff at the museum will work to make sure that the exhibit continues to have the same impact with the remaining artifacts and displays.
“The story does not leave the museum because this timber is going to be returned to its owners,” she said.
School children visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Middle Passage exhibit, including a wooden timber, the artifact at back left, from the slave ship, the São José-Paquete de Africa, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jim Cairnes of Birmingham, Ala., speaks to a reporter while visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Anehtra Richmond of Woodbridge, Va., speaks to a reporter while visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
People visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Middle Passage exhibit, including a wooden timber, the artifact at left, from the slave ship, the São José-Paquete de Africa, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
School children visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Middle Passage exhibit, behind a wooden timber, the artifact at right, from the slave ship, the São José-Paquete de Africa, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
