“Yesterday I visited the Dr M Jamil hospital in Padang city which is treating many of those injured in the earthquake. Around three-quarters of the hospital has been completely destroyed and in amongst the debris I could see medical notes and equipment strewn around as people had made a frantic rush for safety when the earthquake struck.
One of the people I met at the hospital was nine-year-old Indah Aptria from Gunung Pengilun. She loves cycling and was on her bike after school when she felt the earth start to shake. She was in a small side street and one of the shops on this road collapsed, trapping her underneath a large piece of metal.
She told me that she was scared and was crying for her mother and father. Thankfully her father managed to rescue her but her leg had been badly broken. She has now had an operation to mend the damage to her shin and is recovering well, but I believe that the mental trauma she has suffered will take longer to heal.
Today we visited the new trauma centre set up by Islamic Relief in the village of Abung Kapur. In this region around 95 per cent of houses have been destroyed and many children like Indah have been traumatised by their experiences.
The new centre has been established near a school that was destroyed by the earthquake. Islamic Relief has set up two large tents where local children can come and learn and play and where Islamic Relief staff and volunteers will provide psychosocial support.
The children I spoke to at the centre said that when the earthquake struck they were scared that they would die, or that they would never see their parents again. Others told me that they thought it was the end of the world. I was struck at how mature these children seemed but also how a simple game of football could help them release their anxiety and be children once more.
Islamic Relief also distributed food and tents to the most vulnerable families in this village and will increase our support here over the coming days and weeks. I was really glad to find out that the water system we had installed just last year as part of our disaster preparedness programme was still operating here and was providing more than 1,000 people with clean water, which is essential in controlling the spread of disease.
The people in rural areas like Abung Kapur are not rich and many put all their money into building their homes, most of which now lie as a pile of rubble. Thankfully aid has now reached this area but in other more remote regions which have been cut off by landslides, people are still struggling with nothing and instead of tents they are living in shelters made from bits of cardboard and cloth.
After Abung Kapur we travelled further to Rukam in Padang Sago, a village where no other aid agency had yet been. Here almost the whole village was camped under one makeshift tent which offered them little protection from the wind or rain. The conditions they were living in were appalling and deeply shocked me. There were no sanitation facilities, little food and people were at serious risk of disease.
We gave people tents and food, and will return to give them further aid over the coming days to alleviate their suffering, but again I fear that in the long-term after such massive destruction, it may be the need for psychosocial support that is the greatest.”