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News Item: Earthquake report from Chuck Lambson
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| Earthquake report from Chuck Lambson | 06 Jun 2006 |
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Dear Friends, I hope to provide this update and other's like it in the coming days. This first one may be a little long winded because it covers Saturday through Monday. I will try to send a smaller updates each day for the rest of my stay. In particular, I have been asked to update the former Indonesian missionaries on the circumstances of the members here in Jogja who have been seriously affected by the quake. I will include other info that I feel is pertinent. I only brought my old style camera because my our digital camera recently bit the proverbial dust so I will try to provide descriptions. Hendra Purnawan took digital pics. I will forward them later if he emails them. I hope Barry Nay will forward these reports to the other former Indonesian missionaries. Perhaps he can get it to Ross to post on the website. I arrived in Jogja on Saturday evening. Hendra Purnawan. was on the flight from Jakarta with me but we didn't recognize each other until we met Sunday at the Church. There was a wonderful feeling of brotherhood as the members stood and shared experiences and feelings and thankfulness for their blessings. Particularly for their membership in the Church. Many of them have lost much. Homes of some have been completely destroyed to the point where nothing is left standing above three feet off the ground. Still, among all the members whose circumstances are known at this time there has not been a single serious inury reported. That fact has continued to amaze me as I have been out to see their homes. The earthquake lasted just 57 seconds and it struck at around 6:30 am (I don't remember exact time) nevertheless they were all able to get out of thier houses saftely or in many cases were already out of the house. The common theme of many of the testimonies was thankfulness that the children and families of the members are safe. The losses to property are difficult to bear and the members spoke of axiety that is still with them as a result of the earthquake but this feeling that life is about spirit and family, not property, is apparent in the attitudes of the members. The Sunday school meeting time was dedicated to planning members-helping-members activities for the coming week. A schedule was made so that each day of the week the members can go to the home of one of those who has experience significant damage to thier homes and work. After Church I went with Brother Purnawan to make a deliver y of clothing to one of the outlying areas. Brother Purnawan is one of a group of Indonesian membere who work in various departments of the church and who have been sent here to manage the work of LDS Charities. Some of them have experience from the tsunami disaster. I will add a description of this trip at the end if I have time. After this trip I went with the Branch President, Sutkat Raharjo, to visit the members whose home have been hit hard, I will make a small description here of each of the homes. I hope I will mention names that are known to some of you. First we went to the home of Hadi Pranoto. When you look from a distance you don't see any damage but from the inside of the home you can see that the ceiling have become disconnected from the wall in places and you can see a large horizontal crack in one of the main wall. It looks like this damaged wall should be taken down and rebuilt to return the house to a safe state. Brother Pranoto told me that he went to sleep late because he had been listening to wayang on the radio the night before the quake. He was awakened by the quake. He said he woke up with the whole house shaking back and forth and pieces of the cieling and walls were falling. After the quake there was fear of a tsunami. I'm not sure exactly where the info came from. Maybe the tv or radio but everyone I visited had heard just after the quake that a tsunami was coming. Many people were panicking and trying to get out in their vehicles to find higher ground. Brother Pranoto got on his motorbike and went straight to the church. At the time there was not telphone service and no electricity and his first thought was worrying about the church. I should mention here that the church building seems to have recieved no damage. Not one crack has been found yet. Many of the structures in the area of the church have cracks in the walls. Next we went to the home of the Sugiyo Family. The family was not home but we could clearly see, as we approached the house, large gaping cracks in the wall from the peak of the roof extending downward to the level of the bottom of the roof. As we were looking at the house, Kanon, the son of the Sugiyo's came and showed us the inside of the house. He and his parents were in the house at the time of the quake. His parents have gone to stay with relatives and he is sleeping outside because he is still afraid to sleep inside and the house may not be safe in its current state. Many structures have similar damage to this house. It seems that the quake shook the houses such that the upper part of walls broke and not the lower parts. The next house we visited is one of the most severe cases. it is the house of the Brother Sastro Sentono and his family. Basically there is not much left. He had removed the roof materials by the time we got there so we could clearly see that rubble that was under the fallen roof. The floor and parts of the walls were left up to two or three feet high and rubble from bricks and mortar were covering most of the floor area and clustered in heaps hear the walls. On the way into the kampung to see his house we passed by a long tent made from peices of wood take from the fallen houses and tarps spread over the top. This is where the family is now sleeping. It is basically a campsite and all of the neighbors have similar setups. When we went back today some had tents that had been donated by various charitible organizations. Everything is now done outdoors. The cooking, washing of dishes, washing of clothes is all set up outdoors, I asked about the wells and in this area the water is fine and most of the wells are open and water can be hoisted in buckets as usual. Because this house obviously needs to be completely rebuilt I took the opportunity to ask for a rough estimate of the cost to rebuild it as it was before. I asked a couple of different brethren. The estimates were in the range of US$3000 to $5000. I have no idea how accurate this is. Just off the cuff numbers to give an idea. Brother Sastro gave an emotional testimony on Sunday and told of his experiences. I don't remember it all but I do remember that he described seeing two young women that were buried in the rubble of one of the houses and he and his neighbors were able to dig them out and save them. He also describe other neighbors who died including one very close friend. Side note: Today, Monday, was the day designated for the members to work at the home of Brother Sastro. Some of us met at the Church while others went directly to his home. I went up and down the road in front of the church until I found a place to buy shovels and gloves. I bought seven shovels and twelve pairs of gloves. We worked hard from 8:00 am until some time early afternoon (I don't carry a watch). We cleared off a little more than half of the rubble from his floor and finished tearing down some of the internal walls. He wants to clear off the floor so that he can suspend a large tarp above the floor and move his family back into the house until he has a way to rebuild. Some of you probably know Brother Margono. He is now 79 years old. He worked the first half of the day with us with a shovel in his hands. I was amazed because this is not light work and its hot and humid. The full time missionaris, Elder Merril and Elder Mulyono were also with us as we worked. I feel myself wearing down so I will continue these stories of the visits to members tomorrow. I just want to include a few other observations before I close today. While we were out helping today at the home of Brother Sastro there were many other members working at the Church. The parking lot has been turned into a warehouse. A frame has been erected and blue traps cover the roof and sides. Inside are many stacks of cardboard boxes of LDS charities materials. Vehicles are coming and going all day taking loads of materials out to the hard hit areas and the hospitals. Some are delivered by the Church vehicles, some by Islamic Relief Worldwide, and there may be other organizations. These activies are coordinated by Hendra and the other church members and I don't know exacltly what is happening but I can tell you much is happening. There were many volunteers at the church when I returned. Most came from Solo but Sister Steffie was also there. They were preparing materials to be sent out. I am also aware that last night members were working at the church until the wee hours of the morning preparing materials for shipment. Finally, on sunday when I went with Hendra to drop of clothing in a hard hit desa I walked through the desa. Every house was totally destroyed. Twelve people had died in that one neighborhood and may others injured. Many of the wells were not functioning. We looked into the wells and it was as if they had been filled in. The walls had collapsed below the gound and the liquified ground had come into the wells so that wells many meters deep were now only one or two meter deep. Everyone was living outdoors. The people were very grateful for this delivery of goods and there others the Church continues to provide. I think we are concentrating on one location. There are many many charitable organizations involved here. Small centers are set up in every neighborhood to recieve and distribute the donated goods. It seems to be working. The people have food and drinking water and you don't find people complaining and in dire conditions like we saw on the news from the Katrina disaster. My eyes have had it. More coming tomorrow. Sorry I don't have the energy to go back and proof this before I send it so I hope I didn't make too many mistakes. Warm regards, Brother Chuck Lambson I served my mission in Indonesia and 1975 through 77. |
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