Nias Online

Friday, April 01, 2005 Ridwan M. Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

U.S. Embassy in Jakarta expressed its deep concern over the latest earthquake tragedy, and stated that the U.S. government was committed to supporting the recovery and relief efforts in Nias and Simeulue, two islands greatly affected by Monday's earthquake.

"The United States has good ties with Indonesia… We are still coordinating with the Indonesian government on what kind of relief we can deliver immediately to the affected areas.

"We have provided US$100,000 in preliminary emergency aid to help children and for other purposes in the two islands. We have been coordinating with two international non governmental organizations and sent a five-member medical team to help injured survivors," U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Lynn B. Pascoe said.

He added that the U.S. government would likely provide heavy equipment such as helicopters, communications, logistical support and resources if the Indonesian government needed them to conduct the relief and recovery operations.

Pascoe confirmed that USNS Mercy left East Timor on Wednesday bound for Nias if it was needed to provide medical aid to injured survivors in the area.

Over the last three months since the tragic tsunami, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other U.S. government agencies had been working closely with the Indonesian government to provide relief and other assistance to disaster victims in Aceh.

The Navy hospital ship conducted a wide range of medical and dental assistance programs ashore and afloat. To date, USAID has provided more than $52.1 million in emergency food assistance, relief supplies, shelter, water and sanitation, health and other support for affected communities in northern Sumatra.

The U.S. had deployed 16,000 military personnel, 26 ships, 58 helicopters and 43 fixed wing aircraft in that relief and recovery effort.

Meanwhile, the AFP reported from Washington that the U.S. had dispatched naval and medical ships in a bid to help stricken victims of the latest killer earthquake in Indonesia.

"Today, the U.S. naval ships and the medical ships, Niagara Falls and Mercy, are proceeding to the region, should their assistance be necessary," U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.

The Australian and Singapore militaries are helping Indonesia with relief and recovery efforts while the United States and Japan had offered military assistance and awaiting the green light from Jakarta.

Just before the latest disaster, Indonesia had urged all foreign militaries that had been providing aid to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia's Aceh province to leave.

Friday, April 01, 2005 The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Crucial aid was headed toward Nias island on Thursday, but severely damaged roads and ports were slowing down efforts to get help to thousands of people affected by Monday's earthquake.

Relief agencies are forced to use helicopters to ferry food, medical supplies and tents to the island, because the runway at the island's only airport was badly damaged in the quake, leaving it unable to serve large aircraft. Most of the roads on Nias are also impassable.

"I have received 100 tents for the residents of Nias, most of whom do not have roofs above their heads. But so far I have only been able to transport a few to Nias," Second Lt. J. Hutauruk, the head of logistics at the Air Force base in Medan, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

"One tent weighs 65 kilograms, while a helicopter from the Singapore military can only carry a ton. We also have to prioritize the transportation of medicine, doctors and paramedics. So we can only load two or three tents per flight," he said.

The base has received food aid, potable water and power generators from various donors. However, most of the bottled water, water purifying plants and generators are sitting on the base waiting to be transported to the island.

The United Nations World Food Program estimated 200,000 Nias residents will require food aid for about two months. According to government data, there are more than 422,000 residents on the island.

"Please, sir, help us, we are starving," said a man in the Nias capital of Gunung Sitoli, as dozens of people looted a government store while the police looked on.

The grim search for survivors trapped beneath the rubble continued on Thursday, but badly needed heavy equipment failed to get ashore due to damaged ports.

Indonesian Military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said there were four large excavators aboard naval ships, but they were still trying to get the equipment ashore.

Officials have said the death toll from Monday's earthquake could be as high as 2,000. The United Nations said on Thursday it had recovered some 624 bodies, including 600 on Nias island and the remainder on the neighboring islands of Simeulue and Banyak.

"We do anticipate that figure is still going to go up," UN Development Program spokeswoman Imogen Wall said.

French and Norwegian rescuers pulled a boy and young woman alive from two separate buildings overnight, both relatively unscathed despite spending more than 50 hours trapped in the wreckage.

"They suffered from bruises and cuts all over their bodies, but other than that they were in relatively good condition," said Florent Dalmon of Pompiers Sans Frontieres, or Firefighters Without Borders.

Dalmon said his team used sledgehammers and bolt cutters to free the 19-year-old woman, while Olaf Lingiaerae of the Norwegian Support Team said the boy, 15, was hauled from the third floor of a collapsed five-story building.

Aftershocks continued to cause alarm among islanders and relief workers, with around 700 aftershocks having been recorded since Monday's major quake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale.

Thousands of Nias residents are still taking refuge in the mountains because of fears of a tsunami, while others are sleeping in makeshift shelters.

Hundreds of injured people are being treated at a makeshift hospital on a football field in the center of Gunung Sitoli, and aid workers on the island say more help is needed.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hundreds of islanders in North Sumatra and Aceh who escaped the terrible waves of three months ago were killed early Tuesday in a strong earthquake.

Residents started to search through smoldering rubble for survivors on Nias island on Tuesday and relatives wept over the bodies of the dead after a huge undersea earthquake struck the region, triggering tsunami warnings and causing massive panic around the Indian Ocean rim.

Estimates of the number dead ranged from 330 to 2,000, apart from some 100 in Simeulue island in the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

The epicenter of Monday's quake, which measured 8.7 on the Richter scale, was just 320 kilometers away from that of the Dec. 26 quake, which sent giant waves crashing into 12 nations, killing over 273,000 people, mostly in Aceh. Nias was also affected by the tsunami but only some 130 were reported dead.

Unlike residents on Sumatra's mainland, locals on Nias and Simeulue said they had escaped to higher ground following the earthquake after seeing the ocean recede, which they knew meant a tsunami was on the way. They cited their elders' stories of similar disasters, which, among other things, had led to the stranding of whales.

Budi Atmaji Adiputro, a spokesman for the Coordinating Agency for National Disaster Relief, said rescuers found 330 bodies in the rubble on Tuesday. The toll was expected to rise as more bodies were believed to be trapped in collapsed buildings, he said.

From the air, it appeared that about 30 percent of the buildings in Gunung Sitoli, the island's biggest city, were destroyed, and there was significant damage to the island's second biggest town, Teluk Dalam, Associated Press reported.

But Antara said that some 80 percent of the buildings in Gunung Sitoli had been destroyed. It added that many bridges were down, while telecommunications and electricity were still out. Most people in Gunung Sitoli had fled to the hills amid fears of a tsunami.

The head of the health office in Aceh province, Mulya Hasjmy, told Agence France Presse that a disaster task force on Simeulue island had counted 100 dead.

But Vice President Yusuf Kalla told the British Broadcasting Corporation that reports from Nias indicated that between 1,000 and 2,000 people had died. Nias island, which is popular with surfers, has a population of some 700,000 people.

The undersea quake struck about 200 kilometers off the west coast of Sumatra and prompted Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, among other nations, to issue imminent tsunami warnings.