PADANG, INDONESIA - Action Against Hunger | ACF International is responding to the immediate needs of those displaced by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra late last month. The global humanitarian group is supplying drinking water and emergency provisions to residents of Padang, the city most affected by the disaster, and surrounding areas.
Restoring Access to Water
Padang residents face a severe water shortage caused by flooding of the city's main water facility and widespread infrastructure damage. An estimated 78,000 urban households have been cut off completely from the water network, according to an evaluation by specialists Action Against Hunger deployed to the region. In addition to threatening the population's health, this scarcity has raised the price of water, putting additional pressure on the most vulnerable.
ACF teams, in collaboration with Indonesian authorities, are setting up 15 high-capacity water points throughout Padang to provide 120,000 people with access to safe water. Simultaneously, the humanitarian agency is working with the local government to restore the city's water network and repair heavily damaged water infrastructure.
Helping Earthquake Victims Rebuild their Lives
Villages surrounding the regional capital of Padang have been severely damaged - and, in some cases, virtually destroyed - by the earthquake. Based on an assessment of the population's needs, Action Against Hunger is providing 12,000 rural residents with emergency kits containing shovels, blankets, cooking utensils, soap, and other basic items. These provisions arrived recently from Jakarta, Indonesia, where ACF teams stockpile emergency supplies in an anticipation of this type of natural disaster.
Aside from providing immediate relief, this distribution is intended to help alleviate longer-term economic stresses. With these basic supplies already on hand, families can devote a larger share of their disposable income to food and health-related expenses, as well as to rebuilding homes and businesses and restoring livelihoods.
Action Against Hunger has established a food security surveillance system in these areas and will continue to closely monitor the humanitarian situation.
###
About Action Against Hunger
Action Against Hunger | ACF International is a global humanitarian organization committed to ending world hunger. Recognized as a leader in the fight against malnutrition, ACF works to save the lives of malnourished children while providing communities with sustainable access to safe water and long-term solutions to hunger. With 30 years of expertise in emergency situations of conflict, natural disaster, and chronic food insecurity, ACF runs life-saving programs in some 40 countries benefiting 5 million people each year.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Residents search for fish in floodwaters on a highway in Rosales Pangasinan, north of Manila October 9, 2009. A week of relentless rains in the northern Philippines have put dozens of ...
