A mother holds her child after a natural disaster in Medan, Sumatra
Two earthquakes, the first measuring 7.6, shook the city of Padang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on September 30th and October 1st. The quakes pinned thousands of people beneath collapsed buildings. As of October 2 more than 1,000 people were killed in and near Padang, on Sumatra's west coast.
Landslides, power outages, and equipment shortages hamstrung rescue efforts. Thousands of residents remained trapped under rubble several days after the quakes. Working through the night wherever possible, rescue workers were able to extract some survivors. Authorities have set up tents to care for patients evacuated from Padang's main hospital, which was badly hit.
Touring the area, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised $10 million in relief aid. Many countries have pledged aid. President Barack Obama, who spent some of his childhood in Indonesia, offered U.S. assistance. Rescue crews from Australia, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore are on the scene to help.
SOS Children's Villages Keeping Children Safe in Indonesia
Children are among the victims of Indonesia's latest natural disaster. Many have been traumatized by seeing their homes reduced to dust, their parents or siblings crushed by debris, or their schools smashed into the ground.
SOS Children's Villages, with eight Villages across Indonesia, has been a safe haven for orphaned and abandoned children in that nation since 1972.
Fortunately, reports from SOS-Indonesia indicate that the latest earthquakes have not affected SOS families or facilities, which include schools and clinics. Children in SOS Villages at Banda Aceh and Medan, on northern Sumatra, felt the tremors but the quakes did not cause damage.
Emergency Aid Measures Lead to Children's Villages
SOS is known in Indonesia, and throughout the world, as an international charity that reaches out to help the larger communities in which its Children's Villages are located.
After Indonesia's lethal tsunami of December 2004, for instance, SOS provided emergency relief to traumatized children and homeless families. SOS built houses and community centers in areas whose every last structure had been washed out to sea. Based on the local trust gained from that work in northwestern Sumatra, SOS subsequently constructed three new Children's Villages there, which opened in 2007.
For very little, you can help an Indonesian child find a loving SOS family, a secure home, and a chance for a full stomach, an education, and medical care. Sponsor an SOS child today.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
