Aid reaches drought-hit areas
JAKARTA (JP): The government has airlifted 20 tons of rice to 5,000 people living in four drought and fire-afflicted villages in the Kutai regency, East Kalimantan, a report said yesterday.
A local government official said 10 days worth of relief supplies had been sent to the 3,000 inhabitants of Ritan Baru, Tabang subdistrict and 2,000 people in the villages of Pajeng, Long Lees and Nyelon, Muara Ancalong subdistrict.
"We'll drop more rice soon because there has been no rain so far in Kutai, Balikpapan, and Samarinda and many crops have failed", Antara quoted Deputy Governor Suwarna Abdul Fatah as saying yesterday.
Suwarna said that access to the villages had been difficult because the Mahakam river, the main artery of transportation in the province, had run dry.
The news agency reported that the villages could only be reached by small sampan canoes from a downstream village. The fare for the journey is currently Rp 40,000 per person, a price well beyond the reach of local villagers.
Two residents informed Suwarna that a provincial government operation to supply subsidized basic foodstuffs had not reached their hungry villages.
Suwarna, who also chairs the provincial natural disaster management coordinating board, was told that people could not afford to buy rice which has risen to twice the normal price in their villages.
His administration has summoned the owners of several logging companies operating in the area and ordered them to help ease the local peoples' plight, Suwarna added.
Many of the forest and brush fires which have blighted the province since last year have been blamed on plantation and timber companies who use fire to clear land.
The province remains in the grip of a drought which began last year. Light rains fell in the province in December.
More than 13,000 hectares of land have been ravaged by fire since January alone. The smoke from fires has disrupted air traffic and led to fears of a return of the choking haze which blanketed the region last year. (aan)