Chugging
down the street comes a blue and white water tanker. Its driver,
Irvan, toots the horn. From their homes, people come running
with a bewildering array of receptacles: pots, pans, cups, jerry
cans and plastic buckets.
Irvan, 30, leaps from his cabin, turns a tap and water, clean
cool water, gushes from a pipe. The Red Cross is home delivering
water in Meulaboh!
From a small red pot, a mother offers her baby son a sip of
the refreshing life-giving liquid. And all along this narrow
dusty urban street in Meulaboh, adults and children gather round,
eagerly waiting their turn to collect some of Irvan’s
precious cargo.
He is a popular man in Meulaboh today.
“I deliver water house to house,” says Irvan proudly,
wearing a white T-shirt and a Kopiah, the hat traditionally
worn by Muslim men here.
There is no limit to the water people can take. They can have
as much as they can carry. “We give the water as much
as we can,’ he adds.
With help from the local water company, whose trucks Red Cross
uses to distribute the water, Irvan, and drivers like him, deliver
fresh clean water for cooking, drinking and washing to some
4,000 families every day.
In addition, the Red Cross team in Meulaboh, coordinated by
a Spanish team of water
Engineers, as well as volunteers from Indonesian Red Cross,
also provide water to the hospital, tens of thousands of people
left homeless by the tsunami in four camps for the displaced
and to anybody else who has a need for clean water, such as
the United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organisations
that operate in the town.
“The Red Cross is the only organisation in Meulaboh making
clean water available to the people,” says Iñigo
Villa, covered in sweat, grime and sporting a two-week-old beard.
The 32-year-old Iñigo leads a team of 11 water specialists
from the Spanish Red Cross, including a geologist, chemist and
biologist.
Before they can treat the water, the Spanish team must find
it. And in a deep well some 150-metres below the earth’s
surface they found it. The Red Cross also treats water from
the river not far from the water company where they are based.
“We suck the water from the well into bladder tanks, where
it goes through a purification process, which takes just a few
hours,” says Iñigo.
“We then store the water and, with our colleagues from
the Indonesian Red Cross and the water board, we distribute
the water to the people of the town.”
But the thirst for water in Meulaboh does not abate. And so
in the next few days, two huge water trucks capable of carrying
15,000 litres of water will arrive from Spain to ensure more
water can be delivered to thousands of people in Meulaboh.
For two weeks now, a fleet of eight 3,000-litre tankers have
trucked water all over town. From dawn till 10.30 at night,
the trucks bring water to the people. On an average day they
make up to 60 deliveries. That’s at least 180,000 litres
of clean water delivered seven days a week to tens of thousands
of people.
But the Red Cross is purifying more water than it can distribute.
Three days ago, they produced 260,000 litres of clean water
in one day. And every day the output increases.
So the problem is not finding water to purify. It is getting
it to the people. And that is why Spanish Red Cross requested
the larger water tankers to be flown to Meulaboh.
“We have so far treated and distributed well over two
million litres of clean water. But we’re keen to get as
much clean water to people as possible. You can never have too
much,” Iñigo adds, grinning.
Meanwhile across town at the local hospital, a team of four
surgeons and nurses from the Japanese Red Cross and Indonesia
Red Cross prepare to operate for a second time on a man with
a badly infected wound to his lower left leg and foot. The first
operation took place ten days ago.
The man is 56-year-old Syafari. He was swallowed by the tsunami
and tossed about by the massive force of the waves. He can walk
now. But without surgery it would have been impossible.
His two-year-old granddaughter was not so lucky, washed away
by the wall of water. She is missing, presumed dead. Syafari’s
house was also destroyed.
“This patient had a big wound on the leg. It was very
badly infected,” says Japanese Red Cross doctor Akira
Miyata, from Kumamoto.
“We have already removed some bone and a tendon. It was
a complicated procedure. Remove too little and we may leave
some infection. Remove too much and he would not be able to
walk,” says the surgeon, dressed from head to toe in blue
surgical clothing, a green mask hanging loosely round his neck.
Today’s operation is a skin graft, likely to take about
60 minutes. Dr Miyata and the team plan to take skin from the
man’s thigh and put it on his foot.
An hour later, and a pleased Dr Miyata, sleeves rolled up passed
the elbows, declares the operation a success. “We are
99.9 per cent sure that he will make a full recovery.”
A short walk from the hospital is the headquarters in Meulaboh
of Indonesian Red Cross. Tucking into a simple meal of rice
and chicken wrapped in brown paper is volunteer La’Abibin,
28, from Irian Jaya.
A farmer, La’Abibin was in Jakarta for a Red Cross training
exercise when the earthquake and tsunami devastated many coastal
areas of Aceh Province. Sent to Meulaboh along with many other
Red Cross volunteers from all over the country, he has collected
decomposing bodies from the rubble of the town for three weeks
now.
Tomorrow he goes home to his farm in Irian Jaya. It has been
a very difficult time for him. He never expected that his trip
to Jakarta would end like this.
“I have been the coordinator for the evacuation of dead
bodies,” says La’Abibin, wearing a neat long-sleeve
Red Cross shirt and grey baseball cap. “The work is very
difficult. Actually, we don’t have enough equipment. There
are not enough body bags.’
“For everybody doing this work, we all have a bad feeling.
It is very hard. But we want to help the people in Meulaboh,”
he adds.
It is dreadful work. But La’Abibin has found a way to
cope with the gruesome work of collecting bodies. “I think
of them as something nice. I think of them as a person. Actually
I think of them as a friend.”
And La’Abibin has seen a lot of dead bodies. Red Cross
volunteers in Meulaboh have collected over 3,400 so far.
But the town stubbornly refuses to give up its dead. Almost
a month on from the disaster, many bodies remain buried under
piles of debris.
Indonesia is rightly proud of its Red Cross volunteers. They
have made huge personal sacrifices, endured terrible conditions
and toiled long hours in all weathers to help the living and
the dead of Aceh Province. They embody the power of humanity.
The next day, shortly after seven in the morning, the gates
of the water company rattle open. The first Red Cross water
tanker leaves to deliver its cargo of clean water to the people
of Meulaboh.
By the time the sun sets on this shattered town along the remote
western coast of Aceh Province, tens of thousands of people
will have drunk, cooked, bathed and cleaned with water provided
by Red Cross.
It is just another day at the office for Iñigo, Irvan
and the rest of the team. But for the people of Meulaboh, access
to clean water means the difference between life and death.
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Indonesian
Red Cross volunteer Irvan delivers clean water to tsunami-hit
people in Meulaboh (p12535, Ian Woolverton)
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| Irvan,
and the other Red Cross drivers, deliver clean water for
cooking, drinking and washing to some 4,000 families every
day. There is no limit to the amount they can take (p12535,
Craig Wood) |
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Japanese
Red Cross surgeon Akira Miyata operates on a tsunami victim
at Meulaboh hospital (p12540, Craig Wood)
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Akira
Miyata carries out a skin graft on 56-year-old Syafari,
who was wounded in the tsunami (p12536, Ian Woolverton)
La'Abibin is from Irian Jaya. Like many Indonesian Red
Cross volunteers he rushed to Aceh to assist in the humanitarian
effort. His main task has been to collect decomposing
bodies from Meulaboh's rubble (p12537, Ian Woolverton)
The Spanish Red Cross water and sanitation team is meeting
the needs of tens of thousands of residents of Meulaboh
(p12539, Craig Wood)
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