Indonesian havoc impedes aid delivery says German church agency

by Anto Akkara and Stephen Brown
Ecumenical News International

Editor’s note: Presbyterian Disaster Assistance works closely with many other groups through such agencies as Action by Churches Together. Contributions to tsunami relief efforts through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance can be made through local church channels, by visiting the PDA web site at www.pcusa.org/pda, or by calling Presbytel at 800-872-3283. — Jerry L. Van Marter

NEW DELHI/GENEVA — The destruction in Indonesia’s Aceh province threatens to hamper effective aid distribution, a German-based Protestant agency said Dec. 31 as the death toll from the effects of the Dec. 26 tsunami climbed above 125,000.

      “The scene is indescribably horrific,” said Robinson Butarbutar, the Asian regional coordinator of the Wuppertal-based United Evangelical Mission (UEM), after visiting Aceh’s provincial capital, Banda Aceh. “The city has been completely flattened over a three- to four-square-kilometer area.”

      Aceh is an area which bore the brunt of both the 9.0 magnitude undersea quake off Sumatra and the tsunami sea surges that followed.

      “No house has been left standing. There are corpses everywhere, on the roads, in houses, in churches and mosques,” said Butarbutar from Medan in northern Sumatra, the Indonesian island where Aceh lies.

      Aid efforts have been hampered by a series of after-shocks, and rubble and debris blocking roads, as well as fuel shortages, while thousands of people are fleeing to Medan to escape the destruction and the threat of disease.

      Meanwhile in Sri Lanka, the head of the country’s National Christian Council has praised the Tamil rebel group that controls much of the north-eastern part of the island for helping churches to speed aid to people caught up in the disaster, reported the UEM, which has member churches in Africa, Asia and Germany.

      “I am particularly grateful that the rebels of the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] are cooperating with the churches, and that we are able to get into LTTE controlled areas without any problems,” said Ebenezer Joseph, the Christian council’s general secretary.

      Anjali Kwatra of the emergency assessment team of Christian Aid, a British member of Action by Churches Together International, spent a day in the village of Dutchbar on the east coast of Sri Lanka.

       “It was unbelievable,” said Kwatra. “I don’t know how many houses were there originally — maybe a hundred. Today there were three or four left standing — and these are proper brick houses. There will still be bodies under there. Everywhere were children’s toys and plates of food.”

      From Silver Spring, MD, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency said the agency’s office in Sri Lanka is distributing World Health Organization emergency kits, which will provide a one-month supply of medicine for 90,000 people in Colombo.

      It said water specialists were arriving from South Africa to rehabilitate the bulk water supply. Nearly 200 000 one-liter bottles of drinking water and 50,000 water purification tablets had been provided.