[4] This enormous flow frequently flooded Banda Aceh and the land upstream from the town.

The British civil engineer Peter Hines[6] was the coordinator for the six years of documentation and meetings agreed to be in English for the Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean languages needed on site and in Djakarta, the capital city of Indonesia.

[7] 50 kilometres of 8-metre plastic mattresses were woven in Heathcoat Fabrics' factory in Tiverton, England, and on site sewn together and filled with grout to line the sandy river banks.

[8] The project included 12 bridges (designed to span the enormous seaward river flow): 11 survived undamaged the 26 December 2004 undersea 9.3-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that killed some 31,000 Banda Aceh people and swept water up some 40 kilometres of the river.

After President Suharto had made a speech at the opening ceremony, he was asked by an 80-year-old man if another bridge could be built to reduce the distance he cycled to his farmland.