Updates from Sulawesi, Indonesia
Following the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia two weeks ago, Every Mother Counts put out a call to raise funds for our longtime partner in Indonesia, Bumi Sehat, with an offer to match up to $10,000 in donations. Thanks to the incredible generosity of 64 people, we raised $8,940.15. On Friday we wired $20,000 to Bumi Sehat. We will donate any additional funds collected for relief in Indonesia, so please consider donating today.
Here is an update from Robin Lim, Founder of Bumi Sehat, who traveled to Sulawesi as a first responder to help mothers and families in desperate need of water, food, and basic medical care.
Today began with a loud bang, caused by a 3.0 earthquake tremor…some 6 miles beneath the Budi Agung hospital in Palu, Indonesia, where I was sleeping.
Two weeks ago a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck Donggala, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Minutes after the Indonesia’s National Disaster Reduction Agency declared that there was NO tsunami hazard, a tsunami of 3–6 meter waves funneled death and destruction through a narrow Sulawesi Island channel. It decimated the cities of Palu (population 350,000) and Donggala (population 300,000). Liquefaction followed: huge areas of loosely packed, sandy, waterlogged soil were transformed into quicksand. Houses floated like barges. Villages of 1,700 families were swallowed into the liquid earth. The underreported numbers of missing is staggering. Search and rescue efforts are hopeless. Next, as if Sulawesi had not already suffered unimaginable sorrow, Mount Soputan in the North erupted.
Due to the kindness of people who donated to support Bumi Sehat’s work in Sulawesi, I found myself traveling to Palu. Two midwives, three nurses, a doctor and 280 kilos of medicine and disaster relief supplies arrived with us at a heavily damaged airport. Staircases were jimmied up with expansion rods. Walls missing large chunks of cement wobbled while a generator grumbled. The air traffic control tower looks like Godzilla stepped on it. Dozens of Military C130 Hercules airplanes, helicopters and what appeared to be armored tanks were all over the tarmac.
Representatives of Budi Agung Hospital had arranged a truck to pick up our luggage, and Gordon of Direct Relief was waiting with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We were soon laying eyes on a city betrayed by nature. Buildings left standing teetered on the verge of collapse. Multi-level shopping malls were pancaked. Thousands of people camped in fields under blue tarps and plastic bags. Many still hoped missing family would be found alive. Most are too full of gratitude for having survived the multiple disasters to yet realize the scope of their losses. Shattered lives, sleep shivering cold, equatorial heat in the day hours, scavenging for food and potable water. Now it rains in torrents. The speed with which the Indonesian government has restored road access and phone communications to Palu though is astounding, considering the intensity and enormity of the disasters.
Team Bumi Sehat organized the medicine and supplies into two huge waterproof duffel bags. I found a group of early responders camped by the coconut vendors, young men from Bandung Java, with maps and satellite photos, pinpointing areas too vulnerable to Liquefaction to enter. I asked where medical relief was most urgently needed and they said Sigi. “Relief teams ran out of medicine and food as soon as they come to Palu. Sigi is hard to reach. Yesterday they suffered a tornado. “A tornado! You must be kidding!” I yelped.
Sonia, an early responder from Jakarta, organized a vehicle to bring us to Sigi. On the way the tire blew out. We had Arjuna and his trusty 4-wheel drive Jeep, with broken windows. But we needed one more vehicle. We actually found a willing driver and 5-passenger sedan via Grab, as it began to rain again.
The devastation was astounding. We passed areas devoid of buildings, where Liquefaction left only a trampoline-like skin of earth, grafted from somewhere kilometers away. We stopped to allow the vehicles to fuel, not easy, and impossible just days ago. As we drove up country, the rain let up, and the air became chilly and foggy.
We inched by landslide after landslide. Broken bridges caused us to take many detours, we got lost many times. As we climbed the mountain, earthquake damage was less apparent. People lived in wooden plank houses made by the farmers themselves. Someone had introduced cocoa trees to the region, but the people had yet to tap the market, and fruit fell to the ground, unharvested. The main food crop seemed to be singkong, aka cassava.
After 3 1/2 hours on the road, we arrived at an only slightly damaged community building where dozens of people waited.
They suffered the common illnesses of poverty and trauma. Elders sat calmly, seeking vitamins for emaciated grandchildren, only admitting to headache and blurry vision when we found their blood pressure was frighteningly high. There were wounds to dress. Conversation included the shock and damage done by the tornado that rampaged through the village of Uenuni in Sigi, only yesterday.
The day was long and hot as patients crowded into the small room. People politely left their rubber slippers at the door, they laughed easily, Muslims leaned against Christian neighbors in the plastic chairs, we knew they were dressed in their best dusters.
Nearly all of the pregnant mothers had lost babies in the past, most also suffered hypertension, all were malnourished. We dispersed vitamins and advised them to eat more of the leafy greens from their gardens. Fish from the ocean was not marketed at all since the tsunami, anyway it’s too expensive.
It was dark night and still raining when we finished. We had helped 200 patients before the hypertension medication and children’s vitamins had run out. There was a 3 hour drive back to Budi Agung hospital, in Palu. The road winded steeply downhill, punctuated by landslides, which we skirted while we spoke of some of the patients. Another main bridge was washed away, another detour.
Then a traffic jam loomed, as people backed away from a rushing river where a main road was only this morning. Considering the bridge was out, our only route to Palu was to ford the flood waters. Our four wheel drive would of course make it but the rented sedan was a risk.
The driver Bapak Sar had warmed up as he saw our efforts: he had never seen medical care dispersed freely before. He laughed and hollered, “Time to pray!” as he backed up then hit the gas. Waves higher than the car parted, and we actually screamed. The car smoked but we made it. A few meters later, another flooded roadway, smaller, less water, and we had more courage. At last we arrived, to a surprise warm meal provided by the hospital crew.
A cold bucket bath, an honest bowl of rice, some mosquito repellent and rest in tents. Tomorrow, we begin again at dawn.
Ibu Robin Lim is the Founder of Bumi Sehat, which works in Bali, Indonesia, to reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality and to support the health and development of communities. Bumi Sehat provides general health services, emergency care, prenatal, postpartum and birth services and breastfeeding support, as well as healthcare and youth education, environmental and disaster relief programs.
