East Timor, The Solomons and now a second time in Indonesia. Strange that i can remember no offers of help from abroad for our own cyclone disaster in north Queensland. But our local North Queenslanders helped themselves pretty well anyway

The first of a team of Australian disaster and medical experts will arrive in Indonesia today to begin work in the earthquake-ravaged city of Yogyakarta. More than 5400 people were killed, many thousands more injured and as many as 200,000 left homeless when the 6.3 magnitude quake struck on Saturday. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who today described the situation as "incredibly severe", said the Government had committed a large contingent of experts to help. "What we are doing is we have sent a seven-person AusAID team that will be in place in Yogyakarta today to establish a support base for co-ordination, logistics and the medical support presence, and we are sending a health team in there of 27 medical and surgical personnel," he told ABC Radio. "There will be surgeons, anaesthetists, operating staff, disaster medicine specialists and so on."

Australia is one of many nations to dispatch aid for the tens of thousands of earthquake victims as the United Nations issued an urgent call for field hospitals, medical supplies and tents. UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland, who helped oversee the tsunami relief in Indonesia's Aceh province, said yesterday the effort should be quicker in reaching quake victims and rebuilding on the country's main Java island. "This time I think it's going to be easier because Java is not as remote as Aceh," he said. "We are now able to help in a matter of hours after an earthquake strikes," Mr Egeland said. "We are better co-ordinated now than ever before."

But as survivors spent a third night in the open in pelting rain and the injured spilled out of overcrowded hospitals, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called for better co-ordination. "We have to improve co-ordination, both between the government and the regions, from one region and another, and co-ordination with foreign parties and non-governmental organisations," he said yesterday in Yogyakarta, the main city in the disaster zone.

Up to 25,000 houses were reported damaged and 4000 of them were destroyed, the UN humanitarian co-ordination office (OCHA) said. The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) estimated 100,000 people may be homeless. Volunteers and foreign rescue teams yesterday started distributing emergency rations, clean drinking water, tents and hygiene kits and the UN set up a co-ordination centre at Yogyakarta airport to organise the flow of help. "Our priorities are very much in health, hygiene and water," Unicef spokesman John Budd said.

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for OCHA, which co-ordinated the Geneva meeting, said the Red Cross was ready to deliver 10,000 tents, but that more would be needed. "The most urgent needs to be delivered within three days are three field hospitals, with a capacity of 100 beds each, medical supplies mostly for orthopaedic treatment, generators, tents and shelter items," she said.

International agencies have maintained a heavy presence in Indonesia since the December 2004 quake and tsunami left 168,000 dead in Aceh province. That relief effort was sharply criticised after inappropriate supplies were flown in and bottlenecks hampered delivery. Throughout yesterday desperate victims stood along the sides of roads, holding up pails and boxes to beg for money and waving signs asking for mercy. Many had written on their T-shirts: "Help Me." Some people expressed anger that relief was not coming more quickly. The Government declared a three-month state of emergency in the zone, where wooden beams from collapsed dwellings stuck up like toothpicks, and broken ceiling tiles and bricks littered the ground.

More here

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