Church organizes emergency aid for quake victims

The Catholic Church and its agencies are organizing emergency assistance for victims of a powerful earthquake that struck West Sumatra´s coastal area on the afternoon of Sept. 30.

“Our priority is to recruit and send volunteers to the place as soon as possible to help save people trapped under collapsed buildings and to collect the dead. Material aid will follow,” Father Paulus Sigit Pramudji, head of Caritas Indonesia or Karina, told UCA News Oct. 1.

“This afternoon, a Karina team will leave for Padang to observe the situation there,” he said. “Based on their report, Karina will immediately arrange to send medical workers and volunteers and material aid.”

The undersea earthquake measured 7.6 on the Richter Scale and, according to media in Jakarta, has left at least 464 people dead and 500 injured. The death toll is expected to rise with hundreds still trapped under collapsed buildings.

Thousands of people´s homes, public buildings and facilities, including hotels, hospitals, mosques and schools have been severely damaged.

A multi-story Catholic-run foreign-language school collapsed trapping many students in the debris, although there have been no reports of churches being destroyed or damaged.

The damage from the quake is estimated at trillions of rupiah.

The Karina team comprises volunteers and medical workers from the Jakarta-based Atma Jaya Catholic University, and Perdhaki, an umbrella organization for 440 Catholic healthcare services.

Jesuit Father Yosephus Edi Mulyono of Jakarta archdiocese said the archdiocese plans to hold a special cash collection during Oct. 11 Sunday Masses for the quake victims.

“The fund will be channeled through the Padang diocesan commission for socio-economic development,” said the head of Jakarta archdiocese´s socio-economic development commission.

The quake occurred in the Padang diocesan territory.

Irene Kusuma, head of the Perdhaki voluntary team, told UCA News that Perdhaki has prepared medicines. “A team of three doctors and four nurses are ready to leave for Padang,” she said.

The Indonesian branch of the international lay Catholic association, the Sant´Egidio Community (SEC), is also collecting material aid from members in the form of tents, blankets, mats, mosquito nets, medicines, generators, food, drinking water and clothes.

“We will immediately send a team with the aid to Padang to help the victims,” Eveline Winarko, head of SEC Indonesia, told UCA News.

Padang has experienced earthquakes before. Two strong quakes struck on March 6, 2007, killing 72 people.

West Sumatra is also earthquake prone and the Dec. 26, 2004 quake that sparked the tsunami was felt there. More than 170,000 people were killed in Aceh and Nias at that time, although mainly in the ensuing tsunami. Another quake in Nias on March 28, 2005, killed about 1,000.