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Many Children in Jakarta Remain at Risk Following Severe Flooding
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A one-day-old baby girl sleeps next to her brother under a fly-over after fleeing from their flooded house in Jakarta February 5, 2007. Photo: REUTERS/ENNY NURAHENI, courtesy www.alertnet.org |
Jakarta, Indonesia (February 14, 2007) — Save the Children is responding to the needs of displaced children and their families in Jakarta, Indonesia, where severe flooding has forced over 330,000 from their homes and has killed at least 84 people.
Torrential rains in the Indonesian capital have caused widespread flooding — the worst the city has seen in five years. The exceptionally heavy annual rains, which began late last week, have caused flood water levels to rise rapidly during the past week.
Thousands of houses and public buildings, including nearly 1,500 schools, have been affected. Telephone lines and electricity networks have been cut off in some parts of the city and floodwaters have blocked some major roads and tied up the transport system.
Save the Children staff members based in Jakarta are working as fast as possible to reach the children and families most in need. Save the Children has sent urgently needed relief items to Jakarta from its warehouse in Yogyakarta. Supplies include 2,000 tarpaulins to help provide temporary shelter for children and their families and around 450 kits containing basic household and hygiene supplies like pots and pans, soap and washing powder.
Staff members are also supporting partner organizations in Jakarta by providing supplies of food to keep community kitchens running in some of the worst affected areas of North and East Jakarta. Save the Children has procured 7,200 kilograms rice, 11,840 packets of noodles, 4,500 liters of drinking water and 464 liters of vegetable oil. These supplies will be distributed over the next two days. Save the Children has also procured medicine to supply a mobile clinic with a capacity to treat 2,800 people. The clinic has received support for the last three days and is treating an average of 200 people per day
"The relief that Save the Children is providing will be distributed to 4,300 affected people in five of the worst affected locations. The assistance should be enough for five days," said Lies Winarti Kristia, Director of Yayasan Aulia, one of the agency's partners that work with street children.
"Many children of poor families in Jakarta are very much at risk due to the severe flooding throughout the city," said Rudy Von Bernuth, head of emergency operations for Save the Children, based in Westport, CT. "We are especially concerned that the flooding may make children more vulnerable to dengue fever — which have already been high this year — along with cases of diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections."
You can help Save the Children respond to emergencies that put at great risk the survival, protection, and well-being of significant numbers of children. By contributing to the Children’s Emergency Fund, you enable us to respond immediately to children and families who urgently need our help when disasters strike.
