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View all search resultsSumatra flood survivors stage protest after eight-month aid delay
Months of frustration boiled over into a mass protest on Monday involving at least 500 residents in North Sumatra's Langkat regency, where over 73,000 survivors are still waiting for their data to be verified before the government could release recovery aid following the November 2025 disaster.
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A partially collapsed house stands vacant on Jan. 29, 2026, in the village of Garoga village in Batang Toru district, South Tapanuli regency, North Sumatra, just over two months since massive flooding and landslides swept across three northern provinces on Sumatra in late November 2025. (Antara/Indrianto Eko Suwarso)
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undreds of survivors of the November 2025 flooding and landslides in Langkat, North Sumatra, staged a protest on Monday to demand the immediate disbursement of government aid, saying they had been waiting over eight months for assistance since the disaster had devastated the regency.
Around 500 protesters blocked the Trans-Sumatra Highway in Besitang district, bringing traffic to a standstill for several hours as they demanded that the government immediately release the promised financial assistance of around Rp 9 million (US$530) for each affected family.
Local resident Siska, who took part in the mass rally, said disaster survivors in Langkat had grown increasingly frustrated after waiting months for the government to deliver the promised assistance.
“Please don't just make promises. We want thegovernment to tell us when the assistance for flood victims will actually be disbursed. All we are asking for is certainty about when the aid will be paid,” she said.
Siska said the residents of Langkat felt they had been neglected compared with survivors of the massive disaster in other parts of Sumatra, particularly Aceh, which was among the regions hardest-hit by last year's floods and landslides.
“It feels as though flood victims in Aceh are always given priority. Every time aid is sent to Aceh it passes through Langkat, yet we are still waiting for the assistance we've been promised. We only want to be treated fairly,” she said.
Protester Iwan voiced similar frustrations, saying the government had largely ignored him and fellow survivors in Langkat, and that no senior officials had visited affected areas in the regency to observe conditions on the ground firsthand.
