An Irish priest in Indonesia has appealed for help to reach villages buried by landslides following a massive earthquake in the country. Oblate missionary Fr Charlie Burrows has mobilised a fleet of dumper trucks, owned by his charitable foundation, to access villages destroyed by mudslides.''Many of the roads are cut off and aid won't get to the remoter areas,'' he told The Irish Catholic.
The number of houses destroyed in the remoter Cilacap area has been hugely under-reported. According to Fr Burrows, over 1,300 homes were destroyed in the area, which is 700km from the worst-hit city of Padang. International Christian aid network, Caritas had reported only 200 homes had been affected.
The area is known as the 'Ring of Fire' for its proximity to one of the most active fault lines in the world.
In Padang, an estimated 1,000 people were killed and another 3,000 are missing after a quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale hit the Sumatran city last Wednesday.
There have been 30 quakes in the country this month.
Relief workers have discovered entire villages that had been obliterated by the quake, five days after foreign aid began pouring into the city.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Fr Burrows said that in isolated areas like Cilicap, landslides caused by human interference were killing more people than the quakes.
''Here people are dying from human error - these happen because of loggers cut down the trees; the land dries out, there is no roots to bind the soil. The earthquake itself mostly affected the rich who can afford to live in concrete houses; the poor live in bamboo huts.''
Reconstruction
Fr Burrow's foundation has raised €20,000 (or 1 per cent) of the estimated €2m cost of reconstruction in the area. The charity which runs numerous projects including a Maritime academy, delivers relief through an inter-faith agency, as only 3 per cent of the country's population are Catholic.
Other Irish relief efforts in the country include a pledge of €250,000 from Trócaire who this week, mounted a publicity campaign for the disaster. The Irish Red Cross has joined rescue teams combing the rubble of Padang.
Indonesia's disaster agency said 20,000 buildings had been damaged in the quake, with most government offices destroyed.
Fr Burrows attributed this to the corruption endemic in the contract awarding process. Experts say the city had been ill-prepared for the disaster and remains at risk of being wiped out in the next decade by a more powerful quake, since its buildings were not quake-proof.
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