Westport, Conn (December 29, 2006) – Save the Children is providing food, water, medicines, household supplies, blankets, and temporary shelter to thousands of families forced to flee their homes due to torrential rains that have flooded villages in Aceh province and North Sumatra, Indonesia.

Save the Children workers are distributing critical emergency supplies including rice, vegetable oil, and bottled water to families forced from their homes due to recent floods in Aceh province,Indonesia.

Save the Children staff members have distributed thousands of bottles of water and packets of noodles to displaced families while also offering medical assistance to children and families at a tent clinic set up in response to the disaster. Staff members also have distributed more than 3,100 hygiene kits and 41 metric tons of rice.
 
The heavy rains and severe floods have claimed at least 100 lives, forced more than 400,000 people to seek higher ground and over 200 remain missing in what has become the latest catastrophe to strike a region of Indonesia devastated by the tsunami of December 26, 2004, one of worst natural disasters in modern history.

Save the Children staff, strategically located throughout Aceh province and northern Sumatra, launched an immediate response to the disaster on Friday after heavy rains swept the northern tip of Sumatra, the largest of a chain of islands that make up Indonesia.

Areas hardest hit include Aceh Utara and Aceh Tamian and Langkat in northern Sumatra. Staff reported that many roads were flooded, including the main road connecting Medan, Sumatra’s largest city, to Lhokseumawe.

Agency staff are working with UNICEF and other aid agencies in coordinating an airlift of supplies to displaced families.  

Save the Children, which has assisted children and families in northern Sumatra for more than 30 years, currently has operations in many areas of the region including Banda Aceh, Medan, Lhokeseumawi and Langkat. In the next several weeks, the agency will focus its efforts on meeting basic needs of displaced families while also working to help children cope with the disaster.

Severe flooding has forced more than 50,000 people from their homes in northern Sumatra. Homes, roads and bridges are under water.

 
“We are coordinating with government officials, community leaders and local partners to assist displaced families and children in need,” said Rudy Von Bernuth, who heads Save the Children’s international response efforts. “We already have contacted the World Food Program to help coordinate the distribution of rice, water, noodles, biscuits and other food items.”

“Many families affected by the floods lost loved ones and livelihoods due to the tsunami of two years ago,” Von Bernuth added. “We want to do all we can to help children and families recover from this latest disaster.”

You can help us respond to this and other emergencies that impact children and families.