Thousands of Indonesia Quake Refugees Still Wait for Much-Needed Assistance

Cianjur and Tasikmalaya. The fasting month took on an entirely different meaning for the thousands of people now homeless a day after a powerful quake struck the island of Java.

In Tasikmalaya district, West Java, the area nearest the epicenter of the 7.3-magnitude quake where nine people lost their lives, about 2,000 refugees woke on Thursday to instant noodles for their pre-dawn meal.

In neighboring Cianjur district, where a rock slide buried 57 residents of Cikangkareng village, more than 2,800 people spent the chilly night in makeshift tents of plastic sheets. As dusk fell, the village was engulfed in darkness save for two power generators that lit the shelter and rock slide area.


Darmadi, 43, a resident of Pamoyanan where the homeless from Cikangkareng are sheltered, recounted the horrific scene he had witnessed to visiting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“When the tremor was at its hardest, the hill looked as if it was turned upside down,” he said. The hill he was talking about sent tons of rocks and boulders hurtling down onto a hamlet of 15 houses.

In Tasikmalaya and Cianjur, where most of the victims are, help did not take long to arrive. Aid agencies quickly assembled teams to provide the refugees with basic needs. For most of Thursday, convoys bearing supplies poured into the two areas worst hit by the disaster.

But the situation elsewhere was different. According to the Operation Control Center of the National Disaster Management Agency, the earthquake and resulting landslides had damaged almost 25,000 houses in 10 West Java districts and towns and the Central Java district of Cilacap.

In the village of Kawi Luar, one of the most devastated areas in Tasikmalaya, aid had yet to arrive and three makeshift tents continued to serve as home to as many as nine families each.

Despite lacking decent sanitation facilities, clean water or even an emergency kitchen, Ateng, the head of the village, told the Jakarta Globe that they preferred to stay there.

“We’ll remain in this shelter because we are so afraid to go home. We heard from the radio that there will still be aftershocks for one week, so we’re thinking it’s better to stay here,” he said. “We just collected money among ourselves for food. There’s no help at all from the government.”

In Sukasirna, Garut district, 50 people sheltered in a makeshift tent had to share two kilograms of rice left from the previous night for their pre-dawn meal, Tempo online said. No relief had reached them either.