JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, BNPB, reports on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2025 that floods and landslides in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra have left 753 people dead, 650 missing and more than 576,300 displaced, highlighting a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis across western Indonesia. President Prabowo Subianto responds by mobilising ministers, state owned utilities and private donors to restore access, energy supply and basic services to the 3.3 million people now directly affected.

According to BNPB, North Sumatra recorded the highest number of fatalities at 301 people, followed by 234 deaths in West Sumatra and 218 in Aceh at the northern tip of the island. The agency said 650 people remained missing, including 260 in West Sumatra, 227 in Aceh and 163 in North Sumatra, as rescue teams struggled to reach isolated valleys and coastal districts cut off by landslides and road collapses.

BNPB data showed around 2,600 people had been injured across the three provinces, with Aceh accounting for roughly 1,800 of the wounded. Population displacement surged as rising rivers and broken embankments forced communities to higher ground, driving more than 576,300 people into temporary shelters, school buildings and places of worship repurposed as evacuation centres.

Aceh alone hosted an estimated 449,600 evacuees, reflecting the extent of inundation across low lying districts and river basins. West Sumatra reported 70,000 displaced residents, while North Sumatra counted 56,700 people uprooted, many of them in districts with blocked access roads that slowed the delivery of food, clean water and medical care.

In total, BNPB estimated that 3.3 million people had been directly affected by the disaster through injuries, loss of relatives, damage to property or disruption of livelihoods, including 1.5 million in Aceh, 1.7 million in North Sumatra and 141,800 in West Sumatra. Officials warned that the figures could still rise as reports from remote highlands and coastal villages continued to arrive.

Housing damage was extensive, with 3,600 homes recorded as completely destroyed, 2,100 suffering moderate structural damage and 3,700 sustaining lighter impacts such as flooded interiors and damaged roofs. West Sumatra saw the highest number of heavily damaged homes at 3,400, while North Sumatra reported 1,100 such cases, and Aceh logged at least 1,400 homes with lighter damage amid still incomplete reporting on more severe categories.

BNPB’s damage dashboard underscored the pressure on public infrastructure, with 39.34 percent of recorded incidents involving bridges, 42.5 percent impacting educational facilities, 16.97 percent affecting houses of worship and 1.18 percent hitting health facilities. In Aceh, damage was particularly pronounced at schools and houses of worship, which accounted for 38.22 percent and 28.89 percent respectively of the recorded facility impacts.

West Sumatra showed a high concentration of damage to bridges, at 38.85 percent of its public facility incidents, threatening supply routes into mountainous districts and tourism areas around Lake Maninjau and Bukittinggi. North Sumatra’s data pointed to heavy damage to education facilities at 40.69 percent of reported public facility impacts, alongside 23.45 percent involving religious buildings, reflecting the scale of community level disruption.

Heavy Burdens

After visiting evacuation centres and disaster sites in West Sumatra and North Sumatra earlier in the week, Prabowo shared his impressions in a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta with People’s Consultative Assembly Speaker Ahmad Muzani. Muzani said the President had seen collapsed homes, broken roads and crowded shelters first hand, and had listened to families searching for missing relatives.

“He feels the heavy burden carried by the community, including the pain of loved ones who are missing and whose bodies have still not been found,” Muzani said, describing Prabowo’s reaction to scenes in the worst hit districts. He added that the President was thinking seriously about how to ease that burden through rapid repairs and sustained support for affected households.

Muzani said Prabowo had been particularly struck by the scale of damage to transport links that underpin the local economy. “Village roads, sub district roads, regency roads, provincial roads and even national roads, so that the flow of goods, services and communication is cut off,” he quoted the President as saying in their discussion.

The political veteran stressed that Prabowo was now using state resources to restore basic functions in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra as quickly as possible. He said the President had already directed the chief executives of state electricity company PLN and state energy group Pertamina, Darmawan Prasodjo and Simon Aloysius Mantiri, to focus on restoring power lines and securing fuel supply into the affected zone.

“This is something he has been coordinating continuously with many ministers, both those responsible for relief and those responsible for infrastructure repairs,” Muzani said. “The chief executives of PLN and Pertamina have already been deployed to restore electricity and fuel supply there so that conditions can return to normal,” he said, referring to the state utility company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) and state-owned energy company PT Pertamina (Persero), respectively.

National Disaster Status

At the same time, Prabowo had not yet declared the floods and landslides a national disaster, a decision closely watched by legal experts and local governments. Muzani said this remained the President’s prerogative and would ultimately require a formal presidential decree. “The President has certain considerations,” he said. “This is his prerogative, because any decision must be set out in a presidential decree.”

Muzani argued that for now the government had been able to manage the situation in coordination with provincial and district leaders. “The government has been able to control the situation and conditions quickly, and this is now being done together with the district, city and provincial governments in their respective areas,” he said. “This is a matter of concern, because the situation must be faced together.”

Humanitarian Effort Continues

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto underlined the government’s response at a ceremony on the military air base at Halim Perdanakusuma in Jakarta, where he oversaw the dispatch of additional relief flights to Sumatra. On behalf of the government, he opened the event by expressing condolences to families who had lost relatives and homes.

“On behalf of the Government and the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, I express my deepest condolences for this tragedy,” Airlangga said. “May God Almighty grant strength and patience in facing this test.” He said the relief flights, loaded with food, drinking water and medical supplies, were part of broader instructions from Prabowo to deploy all national capabilities in the emergency phase.

Airlangga said the ministry and its partners had sent around 40 tonnes of additional humanitarian aid on Wednesday, complementing some 160 tonnes of basic goods that had already been shipped earlier with private sector support. He highlighted contributions from food and retail associations and large companies such as Astra and the Matauli foundation as evidence of strong solidarity with the affected communities.

The aid consignments included communication equipment, with fifty satellite internet terminals and thousands of ready to eat meal packs supplied by the armed forces to support isolated shelters. Airlangga said the government wanted to ensure that evacuation centres and local authorities had both connectivity and basic supplies so that information and relief could flow more smoothly into damaged areas.

Looking beyond the emergency phase, Airlangga stressed that the government and donors would remain engaged through rehabilitation and reconstruction. He said ministries and agencies were being tasked not only to repair roads and bridges but also to support economic recovery in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and small trade that had suffered heavy losses from the flooding.

Fuel and Power Supplies

In the energy sector, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia visited a fuel station in North Sumatra and evacuation posts in Tapanuli, a coastal district facing extensive damage and fuel shortages. He announced a series of steps to normalise supply and reduce long queues that had formed after roads and depots were hit by flooding.

“I have just finished a meeting with the President Director of Pertamina,” Bahlil told residents at one evacuation post. “Starting tomorrow, all fuel stations here will open 24 hours a day. We will serve the needs of the people day and night, and we will add generators so that we can serve my brothers and sisters who need fuel here.”

He acknowledged public frustration over patchy service in the days immediately after the disaster. “We apologise if our services after the disaster have not been optimal,” he said. “Together with the governor and district heads, we are trying to serve all of you so that you receive good service.” He added that the government had also temporarily suspended the use of digital fuel purchase codes in the affected areas to speed up distribution.

Pertamina Patra Niaga President Director Mars Ega Legowo Putra said the company had successfully docked two fuel tankers at the main fuel terminal serving Medan and surrounding districts, easing immediate supply concerns. “As a result of our meeting, we will increase the number of stations operating 24 hours to around 60, and we will add more if we see that up to 90 stations can run around the clock,” he said.

The government also allowed Pertamina more flexibility to move fuel allocations between districts within the same province to reflect sudden shifts in traffic patterns as vehicles were diverted from damaged main roads to alternative routes. Officials said this policy was designed to prevent shortages in new bottleneck areas where trucks and buses were now concentrated.

The focus on rapid restoration of fuel and power drew praise from the Public Policy Study Centre Puskepi, which has long monitored the performance of state owned utilities. Director Sofyano Zakaria said the presence of Pertamina and PLN teams on the ground had become a critical pillar of the broader humanitarian response.

“The presence of the two state owned energy companies in the field has had a significant impact,” Sofyano said in a written statement. He noted that Pertamina had moved to add distribution trucks, activate emergency service points and secure energy supplies for vital facilities in and around the disaster zone.

Sofyano said PLN teams had worked to repair damaged power lines, evacuate inundated installations and deploy generators to critical sites such as hospitals and command posts. “These restoration efforts have been carried out alongside the distribution of humanitarian aid, including logistical assistance and technical support for residents directly affected by the disaster,” he said.

He argued that the speed and visibility of the energy companies’ work reflected a broader public service mandate. “Their readiness and responsiveness in helping restore energy distribution is a form of the state's responsibility to ensure that people's basic needs continue to be met,” Sofyano said, urging that coordination be maintained through the recovery period.

“Strengthening coordination across institutions must continue so that the recovery process becomes more effective and even,” he said. “This recovery is about more than just turning the power and fuel back on; it concerns the lives, safety and hopes of people at a critical moment.”

As rainfall persisted over some catchment areas and river levels remained high, BNPB warned that the risk of further landslides and flash floods had not yet subsided. The agency said search and rescue teams, medical units and logistics personnel would stay in the field, even as national and local governments shifted gradually from the emergency phase into planning for long term reconstruction.