UNHCR
UNHCR flies tents to Balikpapan for distribution to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left 80,000 out of their homes.
PALU, Indonesia – Thirty-one-year-old earthquake survivor Mega and her husband trawl through the wreckage of her childhood home in Palu.
“I came to my father’s house to salvage things to use in our temporary shelter. The only thing I found was a mat. The house I grew up in is destroyed,” she says.
Mega is among thousands of residents of Palu, a city in Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island, who have nowhere to live after a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the coast of Sulawesi on 28 September killing some 2,000 people.
To help them, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, this morning delivered 435 emergency tents to Balikpapan, Indonesia, for onward distribution. Further aid, including more emergency tents, sleeping mats, mosquito nets and solar lamps, is set to be delivered in the coming weeks.
An official assessment from the Indonesia National Agency for Disaster Management estimates that the quake and subsequent tsunami damaged around 68,000 houses, making 80,000 people homeless.