Dan Eaton and Achmad Sukarsono, Banda Aceh – Drive south from this devastated city and the road just stops.

Ahead lies territory whose features have been erased – just like the hopes and plans of hundreds of thousands of its residents left homeless by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Tarmac is peeled off roads for kilometres down the western coast of Aceh province, on the northern end of Indonesia's Sumatra island, which bore the brunt of the tsunami's force.

Old maps of these parts no longer apply. There is water where once was land, flat earth where once were town. Plans are now being laid for new communities and new names on maps.

"If I went back, I don't know if I could even find my street. Nothing's there. If I was to say 'that land is mine', I couldn't prove it. Where are the boundaries?" said Budi, 50, of Banda Aceh, as he waited at the airport for a military flight to the city of Medan, some 450 km to the southeast and away from the destruction.

"We just want out," he said, indicating his wife and three small children perched on the sweltering apron of the runway with dozens of other refugees.

In Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of some 300,000 people, a line was carved diagonally, southwest to northeast, by the massive waves triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on December 26. North of the line, roughly half of this staunchly Muslim city, known by Indonesians as "The Veranda of Mecca," is a wasteland. No homes. No suburban streets. Just a flat expanse of mud, splintered wood and twisted metal as far as the eye can see.

Residents who survived the killer water now huddle by the thousand in makeshift refugee camps and on roadsides around the city.

The United Nations and Indonesian authorities have begun preparing relocation camps that could eventually hold up to 500,000 people as new permanent communities are built.

"We prefer a new place. We want new homes. Our old place doesn't exist any more. It has become sea," said Ibnu Yusri, who lost his wife and child along with his home in the devastated port area of the city.

Others said they hope to return to rebuild their old communities. "Our houses have been flattened to the ground. We want to go back, but at the moment the bodies are still rotting beneath the rubble," said Marjani, whose husband and two children were among the more than 100,000 Acehnese killed by the quake and tsunami. "I'm not sure what we can do. This place will always remind us of the disaster."

Back to business

The United Nations and Indonesian government hope to open the first relocation camps by next week, starting with four in the Banda Aceh area. "We will start with temporary relocations. But, at the same time, we have plans to set up community development settlements, compounds for the more permanent settlement for the internally displaced persons," said chief social welfare minister Alwi Shihab.

"The people themselves are willing to move into a better environment. We will ensure that the camps meet all their requirements. Security, sanitation and purified water."

But UN officials stress the process must be voluntary. "No person should be displaced by force. It must all be done on a voluntary basis," said Michael Elmquist, the UN coordinator for humanitarian assistance in Indonesia.

In Banda Aceh, parts of the city have already returned to a semblance of normality. Food markets are open, traffic lights are working and many shops and restaurants are doing a roaring trade, even as other parts of the city rely on the massive flow of international aid arriving at the airport.

But outside the city, the situation remains desperate, with some areas yet to receive aid nearly two weeks after the killer waves. Pilots and aid workers running helicopter missions down the west coast say in some parts even the geography has changed. Areas that used to be land have been reclaimed by the sea, new contours that feature on no maps.

In some places, officials say whole towns, where almost the entire population and all infrastructure are gone, may have to be abandoned. "The only way to describe some of the villages is 'extinct'," said Scott Cohick, a US marine helicopter pilot. "The roads are gone and they won't be able to plant rice there for a very long time."