Indonesia Quake Death Toll Tops 1,000, Aid Flows in for Survivors

One day after the 8.7 magnitude earthquake on the island of Nias, near Sumatra, Indonesia, rescue workers are diligently digging through the rubble to find survivors.

According to the Associated Press, the regional governor estimated that the death toll has increased to 1,000 today. While lives are being saved every minute, behind the scenes of the disaster, the international aid agencies and faith-based groups have supplied tons of life-maintaining resources to the survivors.

The worst-hit region is believed to be the Nias Island's main town of Gunung Sitoli. Between 500 and 1,000 houses and/or buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Electricity, telephone lines and water supply have been cut. A wide road now functions as an airstrip for small planes bringing relief supplies.

Global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) Indonesia is providing the Nias earthquake victims with 500 family tents, 1,000 aid packages (including items such as cookstoves, pots and pans, spoons and forks, glasses and plates, buckets, sarongs, bed sheets, underwear, and sanitary supplies), and 25 IMA medicine boxes (each of which provides medicines for 1,000 people for up to three months). They are also providing water purification in Nias Island.

Maurice Bloem, CWS Indonesia Country Director, reported, "Especially in Banda Aceh they have been experiencing shocks on a daily basis. But the situation in Nias is worst. Our team in Gunung Sitoli is still assessing the situation and needs. Hundreds are reported seriously injured or dead. Thousands have fled and people are displaced in Masjid Jammi Annur and other places. The urgent need in health care is to treat fractured bones since many people are have been trapped under destroyed buildings."

Andi Malarangeng, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the president would visit Nias Island on Thursday.

On 22nd March, the Indonesian government ordered all international relief organisations to fill out forms explaining what kind of work they are doing in the Aceh Province and the sources of their funding. With this information, the government will decide by 27th April which organisations will be allowed to remain.

The decision has raised concern among Christian relief groups who were previously accused of converting people to Christianity as they carried out humanitarian work in the predominately Muslim Aceh province. They are fearing that the government is targeting Christian groups for expulsion.

However, today the Indonesia President’s spokesman told the Associated Press, "Indonesia welcomes and is open to all kind of assistance, including help from foreign troops, to assist in the disaster zone."

Currently, Australia, Japan and Singapore are preparing to send troops to Indonesia to aid the country's earthquake effort.