About 50 percent of the Aceh provincial government employees are believed to have been killed during the earthquake and its subsequent tsunami tidal waves that swept through on Sunday.

North Sumatra University (USU) volunteers in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh said Thursday they had received a report from Aceh Deputy Governor Awar Abubakar that about 50 percent of the local government employees had become victims of the catastrophe.

They told the official Antara news agency there was no report on the number of government employees in the province but about 50 percent of them had been missing since the devastating disaster struck NAD and North Sumatra and killed more than 45,000 people.

They said that the Banda Aceh Police and governor offices were severely damaged. Several building constructions such as banks, hotels, department stores were also knocked down.