Aid agencies rush in as Indonesia pleads for help after deadly quake
Print Edition
HUMANITARIAN organizations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province yesterday as the local disaster agency called for urgent food supplies and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people.
Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel concentrated their search on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the 6.5-magnitude quake that hit before dawn on Wednesday. But the small number of heavy excavators on the scene meant progress was slow. Humanitarian assessment teams fanned out to other areas of the district.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams were using devices that detect mobile phone signals within a 100-meter radius to help guide their efforts as they scoured the rubble. The disaster agency said more than 750 people were injured.
“We have to move faster to search and rescue possible survivors,” said Iskander Ali, a Pidie Jaya official.
Those killed included very young children and the elderly. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but he was resigned to it as “God’s will.”
He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit. He said he and his wife managed to push their way out through the debris. Another man said he found his 9-year-old daughter alive beneath a collapsed wall at his neighbor’s house.
Thousands of people are homeless or afraid to return to their houses. Nugroho said more than 11,000 people have been displaced and are staying at shelters and mosques or with relatives. About 10,500 homes were damaged and dozens of mosques and other buildings collapsed.
Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the terrifying memory of a giant December 26 earthquake in 2004 that struck off Sumatra. The 9.1-magnitude quake triggered a devastating tsunami that killed more than 100,000 people in Aceh.
Sulaiman, a disaster agency official in Aceh, said staple foods for women and babies are most urgently needed. He said medicines are sufficient because assistance is coming from the army, police, state-run companies and local governments.
“What’s badly needed now are staple foods such as rice, cooking oil, salted fish and other foods,” Sulaiman said. People had complained about a lack of clean water, he added, but the problem had been tackled and electricity supplies were being restored in many areas.
Nugroho, at a news conference in Jakarta, listed as urgent food and clothing, specialist doctors for victims suffering fractures, medical equipment, temporary shelters and heavy excavation equipment.
The Indonesian government has sent 50 tons of urgent aid to Aceh, including 10 generators, tents, folding beds, baby supplies and body bags.
“Every aid and civil society organization is piling into the area with as many boxes of rice, instant noodles, blankets and other aid as they can shift,” said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, which has an assessment team in northern Aceh.
The military is setting up an emergency field hospital and sending two dozen doctors, and the Health Ministry is sending a medical team and medicines. The Red Cross sent aid such as water trucks on Wednesday and humanitarian group CARE is leading an assessment team of four international aid groups to avoid duplication of efforts.
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