5 Ways Relief Teams are Helping in Indonesia

Aid has started to arrive to the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok, which was struck by a 7.0 magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck it on Sunday.
With more than 100 dead, 270 injured, and nearly 20,000 stranded homeless, the disaster has left everyone struggling, with rescuers trying to reach all possible survivors due to lack of equipment.
After last week’s earthquake which killed 16 people, this one struck at 6:46 p.m. local time, and reached as far as Bali, where two people died. More than a dozen aftershocks followed, including one on Monday morning that registered a magnitude of 5.4.
Here are five ways that relief teams are helping the struggling survivors of the earthquake.
1. Temporary shelters
With as many as 20,000 people left homeless, temporary shelter is a major need, so volunteers and rescue personnel have been erecting as many as possible.
Volunteers and rescue personnel were erecting more temporary shelters for the tens of thousands of people left homeless on Lombok by the magnitude 7.0 quake on Sunday evening. Water, food and medical supplies were being distributed from trucks.
2. Planes are carrying in food
Authorities in Indonesia have confirmed that the military is helping bring in emergency supplies. Five planes carrying food, medicine, blankets, field tents and water tankers left Jakarta, bound for the island of Lombok early Wednesday.
3. Recovering bodies
The death toll has rised to 131 from the 105 that was announced on Tuesday, the national disaster agency’s spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. A woman’s body was found in a collapsed mosque on Wednesday morning in the north of the island.
He confirmed that while there are reports of other deaths, they need to be verified, with the toll expected to increase.
4. Hospitalisation
The earthquake on Sunday left many wounded, and by now nearly 2,500 people have been hospitalised with serious injuries.
More than 156,000 people are displaced because of all the damage to thousands of homes.
5. Evacuation
Relief efforts and evacuation have been marred by a lack of equipment, so they have been going less well than needed.
Most of the damage is in Mataram, Lombok’s main city, where several areas lost power and patients had to be evacuated from the main hospital, rescue officials confirmed.
As many as 5,000 tourists have also left the three outlying vacation islands because of power blackouts and damage to hotels, authorities confirmed.