A 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Aceh before dawn on Wednesday, causing devastating damage in the regencies of Pidie Jaya, Pidie and Bireun and prompting the province to declare a 14-day emergency response period.

Amid the ongoing maximum relief mission on Friday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo visited affected areas in the three regencies and spoke with survivors to ensure they were now safe and promised that the government would immediately rebuild the severely affected areas.

As of Friday at 6 p.m., the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) had recorded 100 fatalities in the disaster — rather than the 102 as stated in the BNPB’s initial report. More than 800 people were injured and more than 22,000 people are taking refuge in various temporary shelters and mosques.

The powerful earthquake also damaged 11,668 houses, 157 commercial buildings, 152 mosques, 25 schools and a hospital.

“The central government will try as hard as possible to immediately rebuild [the affected areas] particularly public infrastructure, like mosques, Islamic boarding schools and public schools,” Jokowi said in Bireun as he wrapped up his visit to Aceh, as quoted from a press release distributed by the State Palace.

The rebuilding work for the schools will be led by the Culture and Education Ministry, while the job of restoring government infrastructure and mosques will be handled by the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry. Military personnel are in charge of clearing debris.

Compensation was distributed on Friday to victims of the disaster.

Local people who lost their homes in the tragedy will be granted compensation of Rp 40 million (US$3,000) for each extensively damaged house and Rp 20 million for each house that suffered minor or medium damage, after the government completed data collection and verification, the President said.

Jokowi has also ordered his administration to provide tent schools or run temporary classes for children.

In Pidie, Jokowi visited a local hospital, a temporary shelter and a command center, while he inspected the badly damaged Al-Aziziyah Islamic college in Bireun. In Pidie Jaya, the President visited the At Taqarrub mosque in Trienggadeng district, which was among 152 mosques in Aceh suffering from damage in the quake. Although the mosque had partially collapsed, some residents used it as a shelter.

In spite of their trauma from the quake, which brought back memories of the devastating 2004 Aceh earthquake and tsunami to most Acehnese, a children’s choir immediately sang a song for Jokowi as he arrived at the mosque area.

“I want all of you to keep alive the passion for learning. Keep your chin up and continue to sing,” Jokowi told them.

The BNPB has already prepared a number of tent schools in some locations, said its spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho as reported by Antara News Agency.

In the third day of the emergency mission, the rescue team led by National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) continued to search for victims feared trapped under the rubble and focused on five points in Pidie Jaya, a regency which endured the most severe damage from the earthquake.

The rescue mission in the commercial area in Meureudu, a severely affected town in Pidie Jaya, deployed hi-tech devices such as life detectors and search cameras that are designed for locating buried victims.

“We’re still continuing the search since there is still a lot of wreckage [to search through],” said Sutopo as quoted from Antara. The BNPB has discovered that many of the collapsed buildings, located in a disaster red zone, were not constructed to be resistant to earthquakes.

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