30 Nov 2004

ICRC helps Papua quake victims, fears more tremors

4:02 pm on 30 November 2004

An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Indonesia's Papua province says up to a thousand people left homeless after an earthquake hit Nabire now have food and water.

15 people have been confirmed dead, and 160 people were injured in Friday's tremor, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale.

Ole Hauge says the infrastructure of the town is partly damaged, and homeless families are now living in makeshift shelters.

But he says although relief efforts are seemingly under control, it will be chaos if seismological predictions of another earthquake this week, are right.

"Only one strong earthquake now this week will change the whole thing. We need to look into, in the long term what can be done and also there's talk of starting up some community awareness activities to prepare them, as it seems the government hasn't been prepared to exactly know what to do.18"

Ole Hauge from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Papua