After a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, a wave several metres high swept over part of the western coast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi last Friday. To date, the tsunami has claimed well over a thousand lives, injured countless people and caused immense material damage.
Large parts of the 300 kilometre long stretch of coastline remain inaccessible. The search for survivors is ongoing and there is an urgent need for water, food, medicines and emergency shelter. On Monday 1 October, the Indonesian government in Jakarta put out a call for international aid. Switzerland responded immediately, dispatching on October 1 evening a Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA) team to the disaster area. Their destination was Palu, the worst-hit city.
Swiss Humanitarian Aid is focusing on the provision of emergency shelter. 50,000 people in Sulawesi are in urgent need of shelter.
“It is very important to avoid a duplication of efforts. We already have two people on the ground who are coordinating efforts. They are based in Bangkok and flew to Jakarta on Monday morning to coordinate efforts with the local authorities, the Red Cross and UN agencies like the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization. It’s important for Switzerland to be able to contribute alongside other partners and for everyone to lend their particular expertise to the relief effort,” said Manuel Bessler, head of the SDC’s Humanitarian Aid Department.
Original source: SDC
Published on 2 October 2018
