Arab News | KSrelief aid reaches over 75,000 Indonesia earthquake survivors on Flores island

JAKARTA: The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center and Indonesia’s alms agency have delivered tens of thousands of individual health kits and food parcels to more than 75,000 survivors of the deadly earthquake that hit eastern Indonesia earlier this year.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck off the coast of Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara province in mid-August killed at least 156 people and injured more than 1,600 others, making it the country’s deadliest quake since 2022, when hundreds of people were killed in West Java.

More than 28,000 people are still displaced across 10 regencies and cities in Flores, latest official data showed, after more than 119,000 homes were damaged by the August quake.

Baznas, a government agency responsible for zakat and other Islamic social funds in Indonesia, said 15,000 food parcels and another 15,000 individual health kits worth 18 billion rupiah, or nearly $1 million, have been delivered to communities in the affected areas to help fulfill their basic needs.

KSrelief’s assistance was “very important to boost the recovery process of the affected communities” in East Nusa Tenggara Timur, the agency said in a statement on Friday.

“This humanitarian commitment is carried through even though KSrelief representatives had to overcome various obstacles and seek alternative flight routes due to the difficult situation within Saudi Arabia and the closure of the Riyadh airport,” Baznas added.

“Although about three months have passed since the earthquake occurred, the affected communities still require support to meet their basic daily needs.”

KSrelief partnered with Baznas in 2022 to support Indonesians in need with food aid and has been regularly distributing such assistance across various districts and cities in the country, including during Ramadan.

Team members from both the Saudi aid agency and its Indonesian partner also carried out field surveys and held meetings with local officials this week, where they assessed the humanitarian situation to help identify the most urgent needs of the communities and determine aid priorities, Baznas said.

The Indonesian archipelago lies on the so-called “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines along the Pacific Basin that lead to a high frequency of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off Sumatra island triggered a tsunami that killed almost 230,000 people in more than a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.