Soeharto consoles quake survivors
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto visited some of the survivors of the devastating earthquake in the Gunung Kerinci district of Jambi yesterday, consoling them and providing words of encouragement.
Soeharto traveled by helicopter from Padang in West Sumatra to tour the town of Sungaipenuh and nearby villages in the western part of Jambi province that were ravaged by Saturday's quake, measuring 7 on the Richter scale.
He stopped by a state hospital in Sungaipenuh to talk with some of the injured people.
Because of the trauma and fears of another earthquake, all the 140 patients were being treated outside the hospital buildings in make shift tents, Antara reported.
"Does your head still hurt?" Soeharto asked one female patient.
During the conversation with Soeharto, the woman, who was not identified by Antara, recalled the moments when the earthquake struck in the early hours of Saturday, and how she was hit by a plank that fell from the roof of her house.
There was a touching moment when one injured woman asked the President to give a name to her new born baby girl.
Soeharto duly complied, naming the child Sri Amini.
On Tuesday, Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Red Cross, during a similar visit to the hospital, had the honor of naming twin baby boys born after the quake. They were named Teguh and Tegar, which mean "strong" and "courageous" respectively.
The official death toll by yesterday afternoon remained at 80, with 737 listed as severely injured and another 1,520 lightly injured. Many of the injured people had been sent to hospitals in Jambi and Padang because of the limited facilities in Sungaipenuh.
Soeharto was accompanied yesterday by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Azwar Anas, Minister of Social Services Inten Soeweno, Minister of People's Housing Akbar Tanjung, Minister of Public Works Radinal Moochtar, Minister/Cabinet Secretary Saadilah Mursjid and Army Chief of Staff Gen. R. Hartono. Jambi Governor Abdurrahman Sayoeti and Kerinci Regent Chief Bambang Sukowinarno joined the entourage.
Aryono Pusponegoro, the head of the medical team from the Ministry of Health, explained to the guests from Jakarta that the ministry had put together the most complete team ever assembled.
The medical team consists of doctors and paramedics from various hospitals and institutions. Such a team is now ready on call any time, ready to be sent to any part of the country to deal with similar emergencies, Aryono said. The current team was flown by an Air Force Hercules plane, he added.
Meanwhile, an official van yesterday toured the stricken villages to tell the people who were still living in makeshift tents and temporary barracks that it was now safe for them to return to their homes, Antara reported.
The decision was taken after a study conducted by a geological team from Jakarta ascertained that the likelihood of another powerful quake was small, and that the aftershocks that had been felt since the first major blow had ebbed away.
People whose homes were destroyed or partially destroyed, however, were ordered to remain where they were.
Doctors warned earlier that the conditions of the people living in tents could deteriorate because of constant exposure to cold and rain.
Meanwhile officials in Jakarta and Jambi were working to solve the problem of distributing the relief aid that has been sent to Jambi.
The long distance to the quake-stricken areas, bad weather and poor road conditions have hampered the relief operation, with some villages reporting that they were fast running out of food.
"Because of poor communications, we cannot monitor all the aid relief that we sent," Anwar Mansyur, an official in charge of dispatching the relief aid in Jambi, told The Jakarta Post. (rms/anr)