Catholic aid agencies respond after quake, tsunami in Indonesia

722 0
Indonesian oldiers unload relief supplies from a military aircraft Oct. 3 following a Sept. 28 earthquake and tsunami in Palu. (CNS photo/Athit Perawongmetha, Reuters)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNS) — Catholic aid agencies were among those working to assess the needs and get relief to the island of Sulawesi after an earthquake and tsunami left more than 1,400 people dead.

Among those killed were 34 Christian students trapped while attending a Bible class. Fifty-two other students remained missing in Jono Oge village, reported ucanews.com.

“They are Catholic and Protestant students who were on a retreat in the location when the earthquake occurred, causing the church to collapse,” said Albert Podung, a church worker who lives in Palu, the coastal city devastated by the 7.5-magnitude earthquake and tsunami Sept. 28.

Aulia Arriani, an Indonesian Red Cross official, said the Red Cross volunteer team was having difficulty reaching the location as roads were damaged and terrain had turned to mud.

“The area is still isolated,” she said. “The land is covered with mud, and volunteers must walk nearly one and a half hours to carry the corpses to ambulances.”

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said Oct. 3 the earthquake and tsunami had killed more than 1,400 people and injured 2,500 others. More than 120 people were still missing.

Yenni Suryani, country manager for Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. church’s international relief and development agency, said humanitarian groups were struggling to get aid to people in the hard-hit cities of Palu and Donggala.

“With the airport damaged, getting access to Palu and Donggala is a huge problem,” Suryani said. “Responders and local aid groups are having to drive overland 10-12 hours. That means a bottleneck for relief supplies in coming days. Landslides are hindering road travel in some places. There’s very limited electricity in Palu, but power is out almost everywhere. Some mobile phone towers have been repaired allowing limited communication, but it’s unreliable.”

Fatwa Fatillah, a CRS Indonesia staffer who is art of the team assessing the damage, said everything was destroyed in Balaroa village, on the outskirts of Palu.

“The streets are ruined and there’s no water or sanitation facilities for people gathered in shelters. Most families only have one tarp and one mat,” he said.

“At Talise beach, where the tsunami came ashore, it’s a scene of devastation, and search and rescue teams are still looking for survivors. All along the coast, you can see just how massive the tsunami was and the extent of the damage. Body bags are lining the road and the smell is almost unbearable. It’s extremely hot and most people are sitting under tarps, just waiting. They’re waiting for aid and the sun to go down. They have nothing to do but wait.”

Catholic Relief Services and Malteser International were among Catholic aid agencies sending emergency response teams to Indonesia.

Central Sulawesi Gov. Longki Djanggola declared a state of emergency until Oct. 11, reported ucanews.com.

Father Joy Derry Clement, chairman of the Socio-Economic Commission of Manado Diocese in North Sulawesi, told ucanews.com some parishes in the area were hit heavily, and at least two churches in Palu were partially destroyed.

“Their walls are cracked. In some cases, heavy steel pillars have become detached from their brackets,” he said, adding a number of priests suffered minor injuries due to the quake.

“We’ve formed team that will be sent to Palu soon to assess the situation there. I’ve also set up a logistics team in the commission’s office where material aid from local Catholics can be collected,” he said.

At least 500 priests, nuns, seminarians and lay Catholics had been relocated to the compound of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish without tents since the disaster, he added.

Ucanews.com reported that Anthonius Gunawan Agung, a 22-year-old Catholic air-controller at Palu’s airport, has been posthumously hailed as a hero for ensuring flight safety as the earthquake hit.

After making sure that Batik Air flight 6231 had taken off safely, Agung jumped out of the four-story control tower and suffered serious internal injuries, Channel NewsAsia reported. He later died from his injuries.

“Thank you for keeping me and guarding me till I’m safely airborne,” the pilot wrote on Instagram, describing Agung as “my guardian angel.”

At the Vatican, Pope Francis prayed for Indonesians after he recited the Angelus Sept. 30.

He prayed “for the deceased … for the wounded, and for those who have lost their homes and employment. May the Lord console them and sustain the efforts of those who are taking part in the relief efforts.”

Related Post

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God's creation must be treated "not as a resource to be exploited but as a home to be preserved, with trust in God," Pope Francis said. He celebrated Mass Oct. 27 to mark the end of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, which brought together bishops, priests and religious, and lay men and women, including indigenous people, from the nine Amazonian countries. Synod participants, some wearing their native dress and feathered headdresses, led the procession into St. Peter's Basilica. During the offertory, an indigenous woman presented the pope with a plant. Their presence was a reminder of the pope's rebuke to a bishop who had made a derogatory comment about an indigenous man wearing his headdress at the synod's opening Mass on Oct. 6. Instead of using a crosier made of precious metals, the pope carried a carved wooden crosier that the Vatican said was a gift from the synod. During the assembly, participants described the environmental devastation and social problems caused by mining in the Amazon. Pope Francis' homily about the Gospel parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax collector drew parallels to the situation in the Amazon. It also appeared to address critics who have called the synod heretical. The Pharisee was "the most pious and devout figure of the time, and the tax collector, the public sinner par excellence," Pope Francis said. But in Jesus' eyes, "the one who is good but presumptuous fails; the one who is a disaster but humble is exalted by God." The Pharisee "stands in the temple of God, but he practices another religion, the religion of 'I,' and many popular groups, Christian and Catholic, follow this path," Pope Francis said. "The drama of this man is that he is without love." In contrast, the tax collector's prayer for mercy "is born from the heart," the pope said. "To pray is to stand before God’s eyes, without illusions, excuses or justifications." Everyone is both Pharisee and tax collector, the pope said. "We are a bit tax collectors because we are sinners, and a bit Pharisees because we are … masters of the art of self-justification." The Pharisee's attitude is apparent in "those who are prominent" considering others to be "backward and of little worth, despise their traditions, erase their history, occupy their lands, and usurp their goods," he added. The pope's words echoed the accounts of indigenous observers at the synod, who described a history of plundering of timber, rubber, minerals and other natural resources in the Amazon. That rapaciousness has displaced people from their land and spurred violence, including human trafficking and the murder of people who try to defend their territories. "In this synod we have had the grace of listening to the voices of the poor and reflecting on the precariousness of their lives," Pope Francis said. The "scarred face of the Amazon region," he said, shows that past experience has not been enough "to stop the plundering of other persons and the inflicting of wounds on our brothers and sisters and on our sister earth." The pope's language throughout the synod has echoed the words of his namesake, St. Francis, who praised God through his brothers, wind and air, and his sister, Mother Earth. Nevertheless, the gathering was sharply criticized by some Catholic groups that claimed it was heretical. The critics, who were active on social media during the synod, also claimed that a carved image of a pregnant indigenous woman that was used during some prayer services was a pagan idol. Pope Francis urged his listeners to reflect on "whether we, too, may think that someone is inferior and can be tossed aside, even if only in our words." "Self-worship carries on hypocritically with its rites and 'prayers,'" the pope said, adding that many people who fall into self-worship "profess to be Catholics, but have forgotten to be Christians and human beings, forgetting the true worship of God, which is always expressed in love of one's neighbor." Calling the poor "the gatekeepers of heaven," he said, "they were not considered bosses in this life. They did not put themselves ahead of others. They had their wealth in God alone. These persons are living icons of Christian prophecy." The pope paused during his homily to acknowledge the presence of "the poorest people of our most developed societies, the sick from the L'Arche Community," who were seated in the front rows in the basilica. He encouraged his listeners to "associate with the poor, to remind ourselves that we are poor, to remind ourselves that the salvation of God operates only in an atmosphere of interior poverty." "Let us pray for the grace to be able to listen to the cry of the poor," Pope Francis said. "This is the cry of hope of the church."

Christians must shun self-worship, pope says at synod’s final Mass

Posted by - November 2, 2019 0
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God’s creation must be treated “not as a…
Auxiliary Bishop Peter L. Smith of Portland, Ore., speaks with students at St. Rose School in Portland March 19. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and went through a 13-year process to become a U.S. citizen. (CNS photo/Ed Langlois, Catholic Sentinel)

Bishop who is immigrant praises newcomers to U.S. for ‘courageous spirit’

Posted by - July 9, 2017 0
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) — It’s easy to forget that one of Oregon’s Catholic bishops is an immigrant. Portland Auxiliary Bishop…