As
Firman’s small motorbike artfully negotiates the streets
choked by crumbled concrete and fallen power lines, the 14-year-old
has just one question on his mind.
“Sir?” the broad-faced boy shouts over his shoulder,
“why did this happen only to us?”
On 28 March, a massive aftershock of the 26 December earthquake
destroyed most of Firman’s home city of Gunung Sitoli,
on Nias, an island of about 700,000 people off the west coast
of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Although an aftershock, it hit Nias much harder than the original
tremor of 26 December. It destroyed 15,313 buildings, making
at least 45,000 people homeless, and killed at least 692.
It has had people here asking the same kinds of questions as
Firman: “Why us? Is God punishing us? Is our island sinking?
Is this the end of the world?”
One month on, the smell of death lingers in Gunung Sitoli. Coffins
are stacked on street corners, waiting for the workmen to finish
digging the graves.
Nonetheless during the day, people here socialise, travel or
work under leaning walls and between the heaps of rubble - as
if all is normal. Life moves at an island pace, colourful outdoor
shops spill into the streets, their tables offering always a
little more than yesterday.
At night it is a different city. People move out of damaged
and undamaged homes to sleep in shelters built of plastic and
scrap lumber, or they sleep as families in their vehicles. Some
huddle on sidewalks.
Many families pack into bicycle cabs or vans and move to the
hilltops beyond the reach of the next tsunami or collapsing
building. They sleep on the bare ground along the sides of steep
roads, or crammed together on concrete floors under tin-roofed
parking verandas.
Young people stay awake to play guitars, chat and wait for morning
or the next earthquake or tsunami. The distant sound of a falling
wall or collapsing building brings all alertly awake and to
their feet.
In the days immediately after the earthquake, when many homes
had no electricity, the only news people on Nias had was by
word-of-mouth. Even until recently, the rumours were that the
island was sinking, little by little, and would eventually disappear.
In fact, the earthquake had sunk the village of Tagaule on the
east coast of the island and made it a muddy Atlantis in the
ocean’s tidal plain.
Elsewhere, communities were lifted many metres higher than before.
One popular surfing resort was stranded far from the water,
and hence, out of business.
Ferries leave the port teetering with passengers fleeing the
island through fear or economic necessity. It was primarily
the concrete structures that collapsed on the island –
especially schools, health centres and stores. So, the professional
and business classes have gone.
Although it has been eerily quiet for about a week, there had
been as many as 55 tremors a day in Nias since 28 March. Some
are so gentle one merely pauses and asks others if it is imagined
or real. In many instances, it is only science that can confirm
that there has been a tremor - not strong enough to feel outright,
but enough to leave an omnipresent anxiety in the subconscious.
But when the earth unmistakably shakes, all pretence of normalcy
disappears. People run shouting or screaming from their houses,
the air fills with the sounds of motorbikes revving and departing
for the hills, and the questions are raised again: “Why
only us?”
The head of the International Federation’s relief operation
on Nias, Axel Pawolek, says that in spite of the government
telling people by loudspeaker there will not be another tsunami,
“they are still afraid of another earthquake, still living
outside of their houses.”
Components of the Red Cross Red Crescent movement have been
working together to help the people of Nias and give them a
sense they can take charge of their lives again.
Almost immediately after the earthquake, a handful of volunteers
from a local Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) branch in Gunung Sitoli
began to rescue people and evacuate the wounded.
The day after the earthquake, an International Federation assessment
team arrived at the island’s only airport to conduct an
evaluation. They left behind a Spanish Red Cross doctor and
water and sanitation delegate to offer badly-needed help in
treating the wounded.
The two could only get to Gunung Sitoli, 22 km away, by motorbike
because huge boulders from landslides blocked the roads.
A French Red Cross medical team arrived on the second day, and
opened a field triage unit in a building by a soccer field being
used for evacuations by helicopter. When an Indonesian Red Cross
team later took over the triage unit, the French team moved
to set up a medical centre at the airport where they prepared
patients for medical evacuation to Sumatra, and later, assisted
a Russian surgical team.
A Japanese Red Cross medical team, which had just finished a
demanding three-month mission to Aceh and were on their way
back home, turned around and went straight to Nias. In the weeks
that followed, they took over care at the airport medical centre,
opened a medical clinic in Gunung Sitoli and continued assisting
the Russian surgeons, who treated over 700 patients in less
than two weeks.
More International Federation delegates arrived on the third
day and immediately began acquiring trucks and planning with
the PMI to distribute relief goods which had begun to arrive
by huge C160 airplane. The first shipments were family tents
and bed sheets from the Canadian Red Cross.
In the next weeks, a French Red Cross team set up water purification
and distribution sites in the city of Gunung Sitoli. They then
moved to the southern port town of Teluk Dalam and, along with
Spanish Red Cross delegates, have been distributing 250,000
litres of drinking water daily.
They will hand their treatment plants and water trucks over
to the PMI at the end of the emergency phase, which is expected
to last for about one more month.
A Singapore Red Cross medical team opened a field hospital in
Gunung Sitoli, and in one week, treated 660 patients. They also
arranged for shipments of rice, milk, water and canned food
to the island.
The International Federation worked closely with the PMI and
a Swiss Red Cross team to get shelter items to the worst-affected
and least accessible areas of the island. The Federation equipped
PMI Rolling Assessment and Distribution (ROAD) motorcycle teams
and trained them in the use of field satellite communications
and global positioning equipment.
These four-member ROAD teams did detailed damage assessments
of villages previously cut off from aid by earthquake damage
to roads and bridges. They met village leaders to organize proper
distributions and gave clear assessments of what was needed
in each area, as well as recommending delivery by helicopter
or truck, depending on accesibility.
By 18 April, the Swiss Red Cross- International Federation-PMI
operation had distributed to the neediest families in some of
the least-accessible areas of Nias over 1,300 family tents where
homes were totally destroyed, 1,503 tarpaulin sheets for use
where homes could be repaired, 1,274 jerry cans to carry water
from other sources when wells were damaged, 2,611 food parcels,
as well as lamps, kitchen sets, kerosene and other items.
Pawolek says the Federation and other relief organizations have
“in the pipeline” all the relief items necessary
for the affected populations of Nias. “It is now a matter
of distribution, which continues daily in spite of the infrastructure
damage caused by the massive earthquake.
For the frightened people of Nias, these efforts by the Red
Cross Red Crescent since 28 March may be the best answer to
their question “Why only us?”
Thousands of the most vulnerable among them now sleep with safe
shelter over their heads, food in their bellies, water and light
in their homes and proof that they are not alone.
|
 |
 |
|
|
A
French Red Cross team assesses water in a family well
in Gunung Sitoli. Many such wells were contaminated after
the earthquake. (p12817)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
A
Singapore Red Cross paramedic treats an earthquake patient
at a temporary hospital in Gunung Sitoli. (REUTERS/Dadang
Tri/courtesy www.Alertnet.org)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| An
Indonesian volunteer walks beside coffins lying amid the
ruins of damaged buildings in Gunung Sitoli. (REUTERS/Beawiharta/courtesy
www.Alertnet.org) |
|
|
 |
|
|
The
International Federation and Indonesian Red Cross have
been delivering relief since shortly after the tremor,
by truck where the roads are passable and by helicopter
elsewhere. (p12818)
Federation emergency programme coordinator Axel Pawolek
helps Japanese and Indonesian Red Cross staff and volunteers
load Saudi Arabian Red Crescent food parcels onto a helicopter
rented by Netherlands Red Cross for use in the earthquake
operation (p12819)
|
|
News
