Category: Aid, Relief, Disasters

Wars threaten health of 600 million women and children – dpa international

DUBLIN — Protracted and messy wars mean over 600 million women and children worldwide struggle to access essential health care, according to estimates published in The Lancet medical journal., according to estimates published in The Lancet medical journal. By 2019, the authors wrote, there were 54 “state-based armed conflicts” in 35 countries – wars that had lasted an average of two decades and presented a “growing threat to humanitarian access and the delivery of essential health services, affecting at least 630 million women and children.” The research team, from nine institutions, including Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, estimated that by 2017, 10 per cent of the world’s women and 6 per cent of children “were either forcibly displaced or living dangerously close to conflict zones.” From 2009-17, the number of women and children displaced by fighting jumped from around 30 million to over 50 million, with factors such as “population growth, more conflicts, increasing use of explosive and chemical weapons in urban areas” driving the rise.

As anniversary approaches, MH370 flight mystery stirs ‘unimaginable pain’ – dpa international

dpa

KUALA LUMPUR — Six years on, the unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 stands as one of aviation’s murkiest and most grimly compelling tragedies. Danica Weeks, whose New Zealand husband was among 239 people onboard, told dpa: “The not knowing of where or what happened to our loved ones causes us unimaginable pain.” At 1:19 am on March 8, 2014, as MH370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, a voice from the cockpit replied to air traffic control with “Goodnight. Malaysian three seven zero.” Those were the last words ever heard from the soon-to-vanish aircraft.  Amid apparent miscommunication between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, as the flight was to cross into Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea, MH370 turned west, veering off-course across peninsular Malaysia. It went north over the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest maritime trade conduits, before heading out over the Andaman Sea and beyond the reach of radar around an hour later.

Indonesia disasters: Washed away or move away – Southeast Asia Globe/RTÉ World Report

Robitan, Kiki Mariam and Amin at their new home. Simon Roughneen

BIMA — At first Kiki Mariam wasn’t too concerned as the tail end of a cyclone sent cascades of roof-rattling rain onto the riverside home she shared with her husband Robitan in Bima, a city of around 170,000 people on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa.“At first the water was low and then it got higher,” the 37-year-old recalled, one hand resting on a sawdust-speckled workman’s table, the other pointing to the riverbank a couple of yards away. Now the river is flowing as normal, about ten feet below ground level down a 70 degree angle bank. But during that mid-December morning in 2016, as the rain beat down hour after hour, Mariam saw the river’s ineluctable swell and soon forgot her breakfast-time frustration about a leaking roof. “I didn’t think it would get higher than that,” Mariam said, pointing at the riverbank. But as the rain hammered down relentlessly, the river rose and rose, until the water, ominously, was climbing close to ground level. “We saw it wasn’t going to stop – it took quite a long time, but it came,” Mariam said. “I was really scared, we were asked to leave, so we grabbed what we could and moved away from the river,’ she said, as husband Robitan, 39, pointed to a head-high spot on a nearby wall, the faded difference in hue indicating the high water mark of the 2016 deluge that destroyed their house and left 100,000 people homeless in and around Bima.

Tsunami linked to volcano kills over 200 in Indonesia – Los Angeles Times/RTÉ/France 24

JAKARTA — The sea rose up without warning Saturday night, crashing into coastal villages on Indonesia’s two most populous islands. It killed at least 220 people, washing away buildings, roads and a rock concert on the beach, officials said Sunday evening. The tsunami that struck the western tip of Java and the southern tip of Sumatra was believed to have been triggered by an underwater landslide from the flank of an erupting volcano. Officials in Jakarta said hundreds more people were injured and 30 were missing after the tsunami, the latest in a string of deadly disasters that have killed thousands in Indonesia this year. About 600 buildings were damaged, officials said. Soldiers and rescue workers moved quickly to clear roads blocked by debris; television and social media video showed survivors pulling at wreckage trying to find loved ones. “People are still afraid to go back to their homes since there were still rumors that a tsunami might strike again,” said Aulia Arriani, a spokeswoman for the Indonesian Red Cross.

Indonesian search for earthquake and tsunami victims to end Friday; death toll at 2,073 – Los Angeles Times

NUSA DUA — Hundreds of mostly Indonesian aid workers continued to distribute relief items to the nearly 88,000 people left homeless by the disaster, after days of slow access to the region, which is a near-three-hour flight from Jakarta. The impact of the 7.5 quake cracked roads and left rocks and debris blocking routes outside Palu to rural areas and smaller towns. By midweek, many of the roads to remote regions were passable, but mostly still to smaller trucks and cars, said Irwan Firdaus, an aid worker with Oxfam in Indonesia. The main routes across Sulawesi to Palu had been opened up to larger relief convoys. “We have been seeing donations come in from other areas of the island,” said Dini Widiastuti of Yayasan Plan International, another aid organization.

A week on from Indonesian disaster, mass prayers for the dead – Los Angeles Times

JAKARTA — Dini Widiastuti, Executive Director of Yayasan Plan International Indonesia, a local NGO affiliated with Plan International, described a challenging conditions for getting relief items such as tents to survivors, many of who are sleeping outdoors. “Warehousing, storage, channels of transportation, these are all difficult,” she said, speaking by telephone. There are three main avenues for assistance to the affected region, home to around 1.5 million people: Balikpapan, a city on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, or Kalimantan, as well as Makassar, the biggest city Sulawesi, from where it can take a day by road, and via the airport in Palu itself.  “It is difficult to move aid around, the airport is operating but limited. We can send more by boat, and it is less expensive, but air is faster,” Ms. Dini said.  “From Jakarta, it can take 7 days to Makassar by boat.”

Survivors leaving quake-stricken town in Indonesia as frustration grows over relief effort – Los Angeles Times/RTÉ

RTÉ

JAKARTA — Survivors were leaving the disaster-hit region of Central Sulawesi on Thursday out of frustration with what they said was the slow provision of assistance from the Indonesian government and aid agencies in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami. Widely reported shortages of food, water, gasoline and other necessities have led to looting of damaged shops and supermarkets in Palu, the provincial capital of 380,000 residents near the quake’s epicenter. Though a few positive signs were emerging in the shattered city — with access to water restored for some residents — relief remained slow to arrive on damaged roads and ground that had churned into mud. Residents said there isn’t enough food and water for the thousands of injured and 70,000 left homeless. “The last I heard, my brother was picking up my mother and father in Palu to evacuate to another district,” said Imade Boby, a Jakarta resident whose parents and relatives live in Palu. He said the family hoped to travel by boat or by road to an area of Parigi Moutong, north of Palu, that was less affected by the disaster.