Agony of mother with 18 missing relatives

A mother of two from Scotland wept tonight as she waited anxiously to hear the fate of three generations of her family, feared dead as a result of the Asian tsunami disaster.

Indonesian-born Zubaidah McKenzie-Said, from Holyrood, Edinburgh, said her older brother Ahmed, 60, and sister Sofia, 55, were among 18 relatives still missing after giant waves triggered by a massive seabed earthquake surged across the Indian Ocean last Sunday.

She said: “I have heard nothing. I am just waiting for good news, but I have none and I’m crying.”

Many of Ms McKenzie-Said’s relatives live in Sigli, a small town in Sumatra’s Aceh province, just 150 miles from the epicentre of the quake that has claimed more than 124,000 lives.

Tonight the 50-year-old said she had desperately tried to contact the few people in the town with telephones in their homes.

“My brother has no phone in his house and his neighbour’s phone is dead,” she told the Scottish Press Association.

“My sister is also missing, she has a big family, with children.

“There is no answer in my stepmother’s house.

“I cannot contact anybody and no one has contacted me, nobody can bring me good news. I’m just waiting.

“I am crying for my brother, I’m crying for my sister, I cry for my country.”

Ms McKenzie-Said is also waiting to hear from her stepmother Hajralimi, her nephew Zamaruzzaman and his wife and two young twin daughters.

The Sunday Mail named 11 other relatives, including Ms McKenzie-Said’s step-brothers, sisters-in-law, step-aunt and cousins as being still among the missing.

She told the newspaper: “On Sunday my friends called me to tell me there had been a flood in Indonesia.

“I switched on the telly. When I saw the pictures I was shocked, very, very shocked.

“I can’t believe what has happened to my town.”

Ms McKenzie-Said moved to Edinburgh in the early 1970s with her then fiance John McKenzie whom she had met in Singapore but from whom she has since separated.

She had feared that one of her two sons, 34-year-old Djunaidy, who gave up an information technology job in London to tour south east Asia had been caught up in the disaster.

But she said tonight: “My son called me yesterday, that is good news.

“But I want to hear from the rest of my family. I am just waiting.”