Indonesia update
Monday, October 5, 2009A few days ago, a group of Red Cross relief workers took flight to survey damage caused by this week’s earthquakes in Indonesia and deliver supplies and medical personnel to the hardest hit areas. Below are their initial assessments:
“The view from the air is quite misleading,” reported Patrick Fuller with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) after speaking with his colleague Bob McKerrow, who conducted aerial assessments of the quakes’ damage yesterday. “Roofs appear to be intact, but they are resting on the ground with collapsed walls underneath.”
Hundreds were instantly killed when hospitals, universities and other large structures crumbled around them.
“We surveyed the affected area by helicopter, and it was like a huge shockwave had come through and flattened houses, schools and mosques for as far as the eye could see”, shared disaster management coordinator Wayne Ulrich with the IFRC in Padang. “On some of the hillsides it was total devastation; it looked like entire villages had been swallowed up by landslides.”