United Nations aid agencies
are mobilizing a huge relief operation for the hundreds of thousands of people
affected by the devastating earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Java Saturday.
The quake killed more than 5,000 people and left
an estimated 200,000 homeless.
The United Nations office that is coordinating the
relief effort says the situation is under control despite the complexity
of the operation. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs says coordination centers
have been set up in the city of Yogyakarta, the epicenter of the quake, in the nearby town of Bantul
and at the airport.
She says the response to the disaster was efficient and rapid. U.N.
staff members working on tsunami relief in Indonesia and soldiers from the
Indonesian army were immediately dispatched to Java. But Ms. Byrs says
many problems lie ahead.
"It is the logistic problem, the rains, the communications, the
storage, the congestion of the airport and the
airstrip and all these usual problems that we meet when there is a
disaster," she said.
Damaged roads, heavy storms and rain are
complicating the relief effort. Telecommunications are down. Supplies of
water and electricity have been affected. Nevertheless, aid is pouring
into the area.
Some 400 volunteers and staff from the Indonesian Red Cross who were
stationed at Mt. Merapi, a volcano located near Yogyakarta, quickly went
to the earthquake zone. A spokeswoman for the International Red Cross
Federation, Anna Nelson, says the volunteers have treated at least 4,000
injured people. She says various Red Cross societies have rushed tons of
food and non-food supplies to the region.
"We have a water and sanitation unit on the way which should arrive
within the next two days and can produce 600,000 liters of drinking water
per day," she said. Two-thousand tents have arrived in the earthquake zone
and another 10,000 are on their way. In addition the International
Federation has deployed three, what we call, emergency response units to
provide assistance in the areas of logistics relief and information and
telecommunications."
The World Food Program already has dispatched 70 tons of high-energy
biscuits and packets of noodles to the victims. Spokesman, Simon Pluess
says a big chartered plane arrived in Java Tuesday carrying more food and
tons of non-food items such as blankets, tents, generators and water
pumps.
"Our assessment teams on the ground have indicated that around 100,000
people were directly affected by the earthquake and may require food aid
for about two to three months," he said. "The markets in Bantul and Klaten
are still closed. That means that all these people who have lost their own
food stocks in the earthquake will rely on the emergency food rations."
The U.N. children's fund says about 40 percent of the victims are under
18 years of age. The agency has set up a child center in Bantul to provide
trauma counseling and recreation for children.
The World Health Organization is setting up a disease surveillance
system to detect and control outbreaks of communicable diseases. It also
will help organize vaccination campaigns against measles, a major killer
of children. |