Singkil, Indonesia 01 Apr 2005 - The IRC has sent a team of health and logistics specialists and a boat with five tons of emergency supplies to the southwestern Aceh town of Singkil, which was hit hard by Monday’s earthquake.
"We arrived expecting to see dozens of felled buildings but instead found ubiquitous pools of water that flooded people out of their homes," said Greg Beals, IRC’s communications coordinator. "Roads in Singkil were cleaved open by the 8.7 magnitude earthquake and power and telephone lines tumbled down like broken toothpicks."
The IRC team immediately set to work distributing blankets and emergency shelter supplies while Indonesian authorities delivered food. IRC doctors Valerie Bemo and Adam Kushner set up shop in an unstaffed clinic and treated a long line of villagers with earthquake wounds as well as ailments that predated the latest disaster.
Another IRC shipment of water-treatment sachets, hygiene kits and cooking utensils is en route to Singkil, a seriously quake-affected area that was being overlooked by international aid organizations in the rush to reach the islands of Simeulue and Nias.
An estimated 450 people were killed in Monday’s quake and many more were injured.
