The
International Federation response to the disaster on the Indonesian
island of Sumatra is focusing for now around the town of Meulaboh,
on the western coast of the province of Aceh. It is estimated
that at least 40,000 people may have been killed there during
last week's powerful tsunami.
According to the Red Cross, there is extensive damage in Meulaboh,
extending up to three kilometres inland. Close to the shoreline
there is total destruction. “There is considerable debris,
massive destruction of buildings and roads,” said Red
Cross Water and Sanitation engineer Sara Escudero who travelled
to the disaster stricken town as part of a four member Field
Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT).
“The huge force of the tsunami has swept many boats inland.
There is a strong smell of putrefaction, and whilst body retrieval
has commenced it can be assumed that there are still hundreds,
possibly thousands, of bodies remaining underneath the debris,”
she added.
Until now, access for humanitarian organisations to Northern
Sumatra's west coast has been limited due to the lack of suitable
aircraft able to fly into the affected area, damaged airstrips
and roads, as well as the long distances involved.
However volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) have
been working round the clock in Meulaboh since the tsunami struck
and have mainly been involved in the evacuation of bodies and
the provision of first aid. But the PMI team, which consists
of some 50 volunteers, are exhausted as well as emotionally
distressed by what they have witnessed.
The humanitarian needs in Meulaboh will be massive and in anticipating
this, the Federation has begun to deploy specialised emergency
response units including a basic health unit from the Japanese
Red Cross to meet the needs of some 30,000 people, as well as
a water and sanitation unit from the Spanish Red Cross, which
can pump out clean water for more than 60,000 people a day.
A French Red Cross water and sanitation Emergency Response Unit
(ERU) is also in northern Sumatra. Together the two specialised
units have the capacity to provide clean potable drinking water
to up to 100,000 people per day.
In addition, a German Red Cross emergency health care tea, supported
by a German water and sanitation team, and a Danish Red Cross
logistics unit are en route to Indonesia.
Meanwhile the Indonesian Red Cross is planning to send two five
tonne trucks laden with relief items to the disaster stricken
community. This is just the beginning of a huge relief operation
being mounted by the Federation in the support of the Indonesian
Red Cross to bring much needed humanitarian assistance to both
the people of Meulaboh and the areas south of the town.
“While other agencies focus their considerable efforts
on getting assistance to the people of Banda Aceh in the north,
we have to assume that many thousands of vulnerable people are
in desperate need of shelter, clean drinking water, food and
medicines all over Aceh province,” said Juergen Weyand,
head of the Federation’s field assessment team.
“It is essential that we get relief items to the west
coast including Meulaboh where we know the needs are massive.
We will use our foothold there to access other areas along the
western seaboard and in doing so get humanitarian assistance
to many thousands of vulnerable people,” he concluded.
Elsewhere, the International Committee of the Red Cross and
Indonesian Red Cross are working together to concentrate their
efforts on the humanitarian needs in the north of the island
in and around Banda Aceh as well as the east coast.
The International Federation is working closely with the Indonesian
Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Federation also maintains regular contact with the Indonesian
authorities.
One of the most pressing concerns is ensuring a supply of clean
water to the population to minimise the risk of waterborne diseases,
and the Red Cross will soon be providing safe water to some
100,000 people left homeless by the catastrophe.
“We have an awful lot of bacteria in the water and the
most common way of losing a lot of people, especially children
and particularly very young children, is due to drinking contaminated
water which causes diarrhoea and then dehydration, and in cases
like this, death. So one of our priorities is to get clean water
to as many as people as possible, as quickly as possible,”
Weyand said.
The water and sanitation ERU from Spanish Red Cross, which consists
of six specialists including a geologist, chemist and biologist
whose role is to assist the team locate a body of water to purify
and make safe to drink, believe they can make a huge difference
in the tsunami affected region.
With the right water source, the Spanish Red Cross team are
confident they can turn out some 300,000 litres of high quality
water every day, suitable for a hospital or basic health care
unit or alternatively pump out 500,000 litres per-day of potable
water, enough to meet the needs of 60,000 people.
“The water source could be a lake, a river or a pool,
it doesn't really matter. The water is then sucked into a big
bladder tank, where it goes through a purification process,
which takes just a few hours,” said 32-year-old Iñigo
Vila, leader of the Spanish Red Cross team.
“We will then store the water and, with our colleagues
from the Indonesian Red Cross, who have many hundreds of volunteers
working in the region, we will distribute the water to the disaster
affected communities,” he added.
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A
doctor treats a child in Aceh province, the region hardest
hit by the tsunami on 26 December (REUTERS/Yusuf Ahmad/courtesy
www.Alertnet.org)
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A
village near the coast of Sumatra lies in ruins after
being hit by the tsunami (REUTERS/Philip A. McDaniel/courtesy
www.Alertnet.org)
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Women
carrying rice stand in a line for water distribution in
Aceh (REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/courtesy www.Alertnet.org)
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