Interview: World Vision on the Indonesia Quake Response
A 6.3-magnitude quake hit the sleeping rice-farming district of Bantul on May 27, 2006, leaving more than 5,800 people dead and displaced some 650,000 survivors.
James East, World Vision Asia-Pacific Communicator, spoke with The Christian Post on June 1, just days following the group’s initial disaster response in the affected area about the conditions of the survivors and coordination of relief efforts. East, who has been assisting on the ground in Yokyakarta, Indonesia since May 28, was also part of World Vision’s relief team during the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 South Asia quake.
CP: About how many World Vision staff members are in Indonesia currently and what roles are they playing in the relief effort?
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East: The number keeps growing but we probably have about 18 staffs. We are also working with volunteers and today (June 1) we did some distributions involving some students as well.
Some staffs are doing distributions so they load things in warehouses and then take them out and distribute it to villages. We have logistic staff and we have program staff that design programs and act as a liaison with agencies like USAID. Then we have some people like myself that go in and write stories about what we are doing and the need. We also have a doctor who has been the liaison with the official health officers to find out what they need and responding by providing stretchers and things like that.
CP: You recently interviewed quake survivors about how they feel and if they have enough money to rebuild their homes. From what you found out working with these people closely, do the survivors have money saved in banks or any other source of money that they could use to rebuild their lives?
East: No, I think everyone I talked to basically said they have no money. I talked to a group of villagers yesterday and I asked them that question, ‘Have you got enough money to rebuild your home?’ They had collectively laughed and basically said ‘We hardly have enough money to live off of.’ Most of them are hired farmers or constructions workers so they are paid a daily wage. People don’t have very much money. The one thing that is very impressive about Javanese culture is that community really works together and they are very tight. What I’ve found is that communities are basically saying we want to rebuild each other’s home together so that no one will be left behind.
CP: How has sanitation been in the area? Is there a problem like there was after the 2004 tsunami or 2005 South Asia Quake where diseases were spreading due to lack of clean water and crowded living areas?
East: No, I don’t think there will be the threat of diseases like cholera, although there is always the fear. I don’t think we will have a major disease outbreak. One thing that parents are saying is their children are getting cough and colds because they have been out in the rain at night in the first few days of the earthquake; at that time there wasn’t much shelter around. Currently, many people are still at risk of getting wet when it rains and the children obviously suffer from that and get sick.
CP: Compared to the 2004 tsunami and 2005 South Asia quake, what is your reflection about the recent disaster?
East: This disaster is different in several ways. In Pakistan, the landscape was very difficult and we literally had to carry stuff up the mountains. I was going with villagers up the mountain and they were carrying the tents on their backs – so extremely difficult. In addition you had the threat of winter coming as well so it was very severe conditions that the people face.
I don’t think that will happen here although the monsoon rains will come so that will make things very uncomfortable for people if they are not sheltered.
For the tsunami, the infrastructure was washed away which was a major difficulty. We had to have helicopters to get stuff out to the villagers and we lost a lot of staffs. The local government lost their officials; schools lost their teachers; the hospitals lost their doctors and nurses and so you had very little to work with. You were basically working at ground zero. Here the infrastructure is basically all there. It tended to be the outlying villages outside Yogyakarta that were affected. They tend to be populated by farmers and construction workers.
CP: What can you say about the coordination of relief efforts – from the time the first team was sent to Indonesia to plans for the future – in comparison to WV’s effort with the Tsunami and in Pakistan?
East: I think with this disaster the coordination is a lot better and that is probably in part because a lot of agencies were here already preparing for the possible eruption of the volcano Mt. Merapi. They had a lot of disaster preparation works being done and the network of agencies is here so that helped when the disaster struck.
In Pakistan, you had the military doing a lot of the work and the agencies coordinating with the military because they were able to logistically clear the road up into the mountains to get the aid up there and they had the equipment and helicopters.
In Aceh, in the tsunami, I think the challenge was there was so many agencies coming in – so many companies, religious groups assisting – that it became very difficult to manage the scale of the response.
CP: Do you have any other comments?
East: I think, as I have mention, this disaster response has been quite well coordinated. I think it is because there was this pre-planning. I think usually what happens is the world responds after it happens and I think that when people plan for disasters and help communities prepare for them, then the response becomes more effective and a lot quicker. I think the lesson to be learn is it is worth investing prior to a disaster and not only afterwards.
