Indonesian earthquake: Family takes refuge at marketplace after devastating earthquake

“I was inside the house when the earthquake started. I was worried and afraid and suddenly I ran away, to the safe place. My heart was pumping very hard, and I was crying, like my other brothers and sisters.”

Novita, 15, lives in V Koto Kampung Dalam, Padang Pariaman. There are 10 children in her family and when the devastating earthquake struck, she grabbed her two-year-old brother, Akbar, and ran out of their house, just in time to see the two story house fall to the ground and turn to a pile of rubble.

“I was calling for my sisters and brothers to tell them to quickly run away to come to the safe place. I was so worried that we don’t have a house any more. Where will we live? Where will we stay?”

Novita’s parents were returning home from a wedding when the earthquake hit. They had left the children aged from 3 months to 19 years old at home, with the older ones taking care of the younger children.

“I was so worried,” explained Novita. “When my parents arrived I was so happy. I am still worried about another, bigger earthquake. There is rumour there will be a bigger one. “

Novita’s father, Eppendi Alias Edi, explained how they have taughe their children to run to a safe place when an earthquake strikes.

”Because we get lots of earthquakes, we taught our children to get out of the house and run to a safe place – there is a corner near our house that they ran to,” Eppendi said.

“None of my family were injured during the earthquake, but there was heavy rain after the quake and my three youngest now have the flu and chest infections. We have gone to the local health clinic for medicine,” he said.

“At the moment we are living at the market, even the (three-month-old) baby has to sleep on the floor.”

“There are a lot of mosquitoes at night. We have what we have. It is not enough. Someone from the community gave us one blanket. We have two sleeping mats – one we saved from inside the house,” Eppendi explained. “This is a traditional market and it’s a dirty area – but we have no choice but to cook our food here.”

“The local schools are damaged. Our children are helping us by taking care of the younger ones. “

“We don’t know how to rebuild the house – we need support from the government, the community, the private sector. We have nothing else. We need help. We need a place to stay, a place to live, to protect our children.”

World Vision has provided Novita’s family with an emergency relief package including blankets, sleeping mats, a tarpaulin, soap and other sanitary items. Novita’s family are one of 10,000 families in West Sumatra that World Vision is supporting with desperately needed survival kits.

“When we distribute relief supplies we ask communities to identify the families with the greatest needs and we also ask the communities to help us distribute the aid,” said World Vision Relief Officer Fadli Usman. “Novita’s family has been identified as one of the families with the most critical needs.”

“When community members receive the distribution items we take their signature or thumb stamp. This is part of our accountability so we know who’s received the aid. The community accepts that we are doing the right thing by them and we visit some of the houses to make sure the aid is getting through.”

“Once we have provided families with essential relief supplies we are planning to provide cleaning tools like shovels, spades, wheelbarrows, hammer and nails to help families clean up the rubble and start rebuilding,” explained Fadli.

“We’ll also focus on integrated programming in the three districts we will be responding in, including providing essential supplies, child-friendly spaces, education, clean water, health, sanitation & hygiene activities,” he said. 

“World Vision is bringing in a water purifier for two months that can deliver clean drinking water to 10,000 households, setting up mobile toilets at schools and providing water filters and water purification sachets.”

Novita also mentioned her desire to return to school: “I’m supposed to be back in school tomorrow. But our uniform and school kits were inside the house and they are now ruined,” she said.

When Novita does return to school, World Vision will be there, working closely with her community to help them rebuild their lives. World Vision is planning to provide children who have lost their books and pens with return-to-school kits, in addition to conducting emergency education in schools and setting up portable toilets for school children and the community to access.

People who want to make a donation, may do so through World Vision New Zealand’s Asia-Pacific Emergency Relief Fund by going to https://www.worldvision.org.nz/Donations