Since Saturday hundreds of international relief workers and doctors from the Indonesian Red Cross have been working in the catastrophe area – but language problems makes the corporation difficult.
Monday the 30th Danish Red Cross sent a team of IT- and communication-experts to Indonesia to help the relief workers speak with each other.
“The biggest need right now is medical help to the more than 20,000 wounded. After that the job is to set up tents to the 300,000, who have lost their homes. The Danish team aims to deal with the urgent need for coordination and communication,” The leader of the Danish Red Cross team in Indonesia, Peder Damm, says.
Peder Damm has been in the area since Saturday and informs that the relief work is well under way. Yesterday Red Cross received 13,000 tents from a near-by-storage.
“It is a good start in order to help the people who are worst off. But we believe that we will need as much as 35,000 tents all in all,” Peder Damm said to Danish Red Cross.
Death toll rises
The official death toll following 6.3 magnitude earthquake, which struck south of the city of Yogyakarta, has reached 5,427 Thuesday morning.
More than 20,000 people have been injured and the government says as many as 200,000 people had been made homeless.
More bodies are thought to be trapped under debris, but rescuers say the odds of finding survivors are slim.
Help From The Danish Embassy
Danish Red Cross has received 600,000 DKK from the Danish embassy in Jakarta. The money is to be spent on medicine and other necessities needed in the relief work.
Red Cross isn’t the only Danish organisation, which is sending help to Indonesia. “Folkekirkens Nødhjælp” has so far given 200,000 DKK to help the survivors of the quake. The money is earmarked for urgent help – such as food, water, tents, baby-equipment and medicine. The organisation is also planning to send relief workers to the area.
Also Read – Norwegian Funding To Earthquake Victims
