By Rainer Lang 

Padang, Indonesia

Marlies no longer knows how to make a living.  The widow sees no future for her and her two children after the strong earthquake which struck Sumatra last week.  ACT International members doing relief work in Indonesia are trying to support the hardest hit victims of the earthquake like Marlies.

The 39 year old made her living for herself and her two children selling small snacks on the street. Now her cooking utensils are buried under the rubble of her home in Pariaman district close to Sungai Lilua. She has no means of earning money to reconstruct her home which she shared with her parents and her sister's family of seven. Luckily none of the family died. Only an uncle had a leg injury which was treated at a nearby ACT International medical post, she says.

For Arshinta, of ACT International, the example of Marlies shows that the poorest suffered most from the earthquake.  Marlies is still in shock. She recalls that the earth trembled, slightly at first, but then the shaking quickly became strong. "Everybody fell down. When we managed to get up and run into the open, the house collapsed," she explains. Now she tries to survive in the remains of the house.

Neighbour Admal says that his only possession is a small piece of plastic sheeting. His house is a heap of rubble. The father of nine is collecting all the things he can find which could be used again, like nails and wood. His wife and his oldest daughter are cooking dinner under the trees nearby. The makeshift tent gives hardly enough room for Admal's family. With his young daughter Angel he is posing in the rubble with a clock which he saved from the destroyed house. "The clock shows the time when the earthquake struck," he says.

One of the big problems, not only with the houses of Admal or Marlies but the whole area, is poor construction. These houses cannot resist strong earthquakes. But people who earn hardly enough to feed their families cannot afford a solid construction with expensive materials, Arshinta explains. The cement is poor quality because there is so much sand in it that the whole construction falls apart when an earthquake hits the area. In the city of Padang, many of the new concrete buildings collapsed.  Wood has become too expensive as a building material. Wooden buildings can resist tremors.

But also many of the older and smaller houses in Padang were destroyed. Shop owner Hasan for example lost everything. Now he has hardly any money left to buy food for his family. With his wife and three daughters, he stays in the neighbourhood with friends. "But one of his daughters is so afraid of living there that she is all the time asking when we are moving," Hasan says pointing out that they can not move anywhere at the moment. People who are in dire need after the earthquake are being supported with food and non food items in Padang and Pariaman districts.

What is most urgently needed is temporary shelter, ACT members point out. "They need plastic sheeting and tents to have some makeshift housing for the families," Arshinta says. She points out that the weather is worsening. Every day it is raining more heavily. Children and elderly people are especially in danger of suffering respiratory infections and getting seriously sick, a doctor from ACT warns.  People need to be supported quickly, they say.  ACT has already distributed plastic sheeting and blankets.

Rainer Lang spent the day with ACT International member, Yakkum Emergency Unit.

ACT International is supported by gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing, United Church of Christ.