Relief continues for survivors of Indonesian earthquake
Melinda and several hundred other residents of Tirto, Indonesia received emergency treatment from Operation Blessing medical teams.
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By Sarah Pate
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia - The shrill cries of one-year-old Melinda pierce through the stagnant afternoon heat in the village of Tirto, Indonesia.
Her mother Rustina presses the infant's small body tightly against her chest, but Melinda cannot help but squirm in pain as the doctor swabs her face with alcohol and applies strips of gauze to her open wounds.
"The walls were starting to collapse," says Rustina as she recounts the terrifying 6.3 magnitude earthquake that has left over 3,000 dead and thousands more injured in her district of Bantul.
Cut and bruised, Rustina managed to escape from her crumbling home with Melinda in her arms and three-year-old son Benny at her side. Now her family and several hundred other residents are receiving free medical treatment from a team of Operation Blessing doctors who have set up a temporary clinic under a thatched-roof hut in the village of Tirto.
"This is the first time we have received help," says Wiwin who brought her two children, ages three and four, to the clinic.
Nights of sleeping outside under tents in the pouring rain has taken its toll on survivors who now battle flu viruses, colds and other respiratory illnesses.
"We’re trying to get roofs over their heads, keep them warm, and give them food and medical attention," says Mark McClendon, regional director for Operation Blessing in Indonesia.
And since day one, that is exactly what Operation Blessing has been doing.
Fifteen and a half hours after the earthquake struck, a convoy of OBI medical teams and trucks arrived in Yogyakarta and began distributing tarps, blankets, food and medicine to remote villages devastated by the quake.
"Teams are now reaching an average of 1,000 residents per day," says McClendon.
The scope of Operation Blessing’s relief efforts can be credited in large part to the hundreds of volunteers who are working round-the-clock at OBI’s base of operations in the lobby of Hotel Bhinneka.
The entire downstairs lobby of the hotel is filled with mountainous piles of OBI "family packs". The water-resistant plastic bags are stuffed with food, toothpaste, soap, and other emergency aid items. Volunteers working in seven and eight hour shifts assemble the packs and then load them into vans and buses for distribution.
"Yesterday we packed 2,000 bags," says one volunteer. "Today, our goal is 4,000."
OBI volunteers work around the clock to assemble 20,000 "family packs" for distribution over the next few days.
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"We’re prepared to do whatever needs to be done," says Kathryn, who arrived on Sunday with a team of six volunteers from Bandung. "We didn’t know Mark at all, but when we arrived he welcomed us, fed us and then said, 'get busy'!"
And busy they have been, with volunteers tearing through cellophane-packed goods and boxes and then stuffing bags with assembly-line precision.
"We just got a thousand more blankets," McClendon reports to the team as he looks up from his cell phone.
Thirty minutes later, a large bus is filled to capacity with several thousand kilos of rice, tarps, and bags of aid to be distributed to survivors and families in the village of Tirto.
Survivors like Wati, who gently lifts her pant leg to reveal large bruises and scrapes received from falling debris. She stands on top of a mound of freshly broken terracotta bricks and pieces of glass in what used to be her living room and points to her daughter Bella’s bedroom.
"She was buried under the rubble," Wati says. "We had to climb through the bedroom wall to dig her out."
A blue door covered in stickers marks the entrance to Wati’s 13-year-old daughter’s room.
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Fortunately, thirteen-year-old Bella survived and now lives with her grandparents in a village thirty minutes away. All that remains of her bedroom, however, is a blue door covered with a colorful array of stickers, including a 5 x 7 cut-out picture of Winnie the Pooh.
Despite the destruction, her mother is smiling. "It's a miracle that we are all alive," she says. "It is a miracle."
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Operation Blessing staff and volunteer teams are on the ground providing emergency relief in the form of tarps, blankets, food and medical aid. You can help ease the suffering of thousands who survived the devastating earthquake but now find themselves homeless, empty-handed and in need of medical care. Your gift today will help ensure that the victims in Central Java receive the help they need. Thank you for partnering with us!
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