Accuracy of data on Nias disaster questionable

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Nias Disaster Center coordinator A.A. Gulo said in Nias on Wednesday that the data on the fatalities and damage caused by the recent floods was questionable.

The most questionable aspect was the number of houses destroyed by the flood, he said, citing the recent finding in Telukdalam district where 60 shacks or huts destroyed by the floods had previously been claimed to have been residents' houses.

"We had not physically checked out the reports. But after we crosschecked the reports on the ground, we concluded that all the reports should be treated with a pinch of salt," Gulo told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Wednesday.

"Coordination among the people and institutions dealing with the disaster has been very poor. All the village heads have been dishonest in the reports (on damage and fatalities) they have filed with us."

"The result is that we have not yet been able to clarify how many people were really killed and how much infrastructure was destroyed in the disaster. We will soon identify how many men, women and children died in the calamity," he said while acknowledging that this was very late given that the floods swept through the Nias districts of Lahusa, Lolomatua, Telukdalam, Gomo, Bawalato, Lolowau and Ananaraya last Tuesday.

Gulo's statements underlined reporters' skepticism about the accuracy of the data.

Reporters visiting Nias soon after the disaster took place last week raised questions about the high death toll reported after seeing no sign of mass graves for the victims.

The latest data made available at 5 p.m. on Wednesday indicated that the death toll had reached 103, with 160 people missing and 859 houses, 11 school buildings, three churches and four bridges damaged.

Speaking about the dead, Gulo said that the bodies of all the victims had been claimed by relatives, who buried them near their own homes.

Chairman of Commission I of the Nias Regency Legislative Council Ali Amran told the Post that the legislature would soon summon Nias chief executives and the disaster relief committee over the inaccurate data being supplied.

In a related development, a Medan-based legal practitioner, Aldian Pinem, said the intention of falsifying data could be subject to a maximum punishment of four years imprisonment for violating Article 335 of the Criminal Code.

While the authorities were busy trying to sort out the data, aid kept flowing into the island for the disaster's survivors.

The Embassy of Japan said in a press release received by the Post on Wednesday that its government had donated food and material aid worth US$38,000.

"The Government of Japan has decided to extend this aid from a humanitarian point of view, considering the friendly relationship between the two countries and taking into account the scale of the disaster," the release said. (42/sur)