Quake relief quickens
BANTUL, Indonesia — Relief efforts for an estimated 650,000 people displaced by Indonesia's earthquake picked up today with a surge of foreign aid workers coming into the region and the reopening of a key airport.
Thousands of women and children lined roads clogged with relief vehicles and curious onlookers, asking motorists for money so they could buy food. Some stood next to a banner that said, "Don't just look. Help."
The main hospital in hardest-hit Bantul district remained overwhelmed, with patients cramming corridors or sleeping on pieces of cardboard on the parking lot, and doctors complained of a lack of supplies.
But Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, said the crisis appeared to be easing with the arrival of aid workers from more than 20 countries. "We are now reaching more and more victims," he said. "I am getting reports that we are making enormous progress."
Saturday's magnitude-6.3 quake on Java island reduced more than 135,000 houses into piles of bricks, tiles and wood in less than a minute, killing more than 5,800 people in a region of largely rice farming communities.
An estimated 647,000 people were displaced by the quake, nearly a third of them homeless and the rest staying with relatives, said Bambang Priyohadi, a senior provincial government official. He based the figure on the number of demolished homes and an average family size of 4.8 people.
Getting food and fresh water to survivors remained a pressing concern, with an estimated $5 million needed over the next few months, the U.N. World Food Program said.
But Egeland said the aid effort appeared to be going well overall, with major improvements in coordination among aid organizations and nations since the 2004 tsunami that killed 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province alone.
