World Vision is dispatching an assessment team to Manokwari in Indonesia's remote Papua Province after a series of powerful earthquakes - measuring up to 7.6 struck the city and sparked a tsunami warning early Sunday, January 4 2009.
Four people were reported to have been killed, scores injured and many hundreds made homeless in news reports late yesterday, with some major buildings seriously damaged. Electricity and telecommunications systems in the area were cut.
The airport at Manokwari was also reported closed. However, the tsunami did not form and the warning was recalled.
The assessment team based in Papua province was due to fly by plane - travel time 90 minutes - from Jayapura where WV Indonesia has an office, at 8am local time on Monday, January 5 but this is dependent on the airport in Manokwari being opened. If this does not happen the team will go by boat - travel time a day and a half.
The team, which includes communicator Enda Balina, has 1,800 emergency kits of non-food items pre-positioned in Jayapura and ready to be deployed. The kits are of two types - for families, and for families with children aged under three. Included amonng them are blankets, hygiene kits, tarps, sarongs and mattresses. The team that is hoping to fly aims to take 60-100 tarps with them and to draw down from their pre-positioned stocks depending on the assessment team's findings. That aid may go by ferry boat, if needed.
World Vision does not have projects in the affected area. Manokwari has a population of some 160,000 and Papua province, 2.5 million.
Panic swept through the city as people fled to higher ground in the face of the tsunami warning, during the dark.
Papua is the Indonesian portion of New Guinea island, located about 1,830 miles (2,955 kilometers) east of the capital Jakarta.
A staff member holidaying with family in Manokwari said many people were too frightened to return to their homes due to ongoing aftershocks and were staying outdoors.
Due to the remote nature of the area it may take some time for the full impact of the quakes to be understood. The epicentre of the quake was on land making the potential for devastation greater.
World Vision continues to monitor events and whether there will be a need for a more major response.
Spokespeople:
Katarina Hardono, Communications Manager based in Jakarta: +(62) 8111838476 (cell);
Enda Balina, Communications Officer, based in Jayapura and traveling to Manokwari: +(62) 815 84344796 (cell).
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Residents inspect the damage to a house after an earthquake in Sorong, West Papua January 4, 2009. A series of powerful earthquakes off the northern coast of West Papua, Indonesia, early ...
