Souls For Lombok by Jemma Scott
Over the past month the Indonesian island of Lombok has been shaken by two high magnitude earthquakes, with daily tremors that have killed over 500 people. The biggest quake reached a 6.9 magnitude on the 5th of August, displacing more than 400,000 people and leaving schools, mosques and businesses to rebuild from the dust.
The archipelago is known for its frequent earthquake activity as it's positioned on the Ring of Fire, a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are prominent. The fault line, measuring 40,000km long, is responsible for about 90 per cent of earthquakes across the globe.
The government and foreign aid organisations are doing what they can to supply resources and basic needs for the people of the island, however these resources are only being distributed to camps based within a certain range. The communities living in remote villages in the North East of Lombok that are difficult to access, or over an hour drive from main camp bases, do not have this help. With wet season beginning early October, providing temporary shelter is a necessity.
Flora Christin, a local professional surfer who has put her career on hold to personally ensure all the money raised and items donated go straight into the hands of those in need, has been collecting donations since the 14th of August. So far she has raised more than $24,000 USD, and a total of $6,800 USD worth of supplies. She gets shit done.
"There are still lots of remote villages that haven't got any help from the government or big organisations. I've been talking to some organisations / operations taking place such as Project Karma who are still setting up a system to give long term supplies. This is where we come in as an individual group providing short term aid. Collecting donations, buying the supplies and actually dropping it directly to the villages that need it most. We are trying to bring everyone together to donate so we can provide these remote villages with urgent needs such as rice, water, dried foods and water filters. This is especially important for the people in the North East of Lombok who currently don't have anything coming through or are not in a good health situation - there is minimal medical aid.
So what we are trying to do now is to provide people in remote areas that aren't receiving supplies with basic needs. Once the system is settled with big organisations they'll be able to cover all the camps including the ones way up in the mountains. Until then I'm still going to be on the ground and helping everyone as much as I can, so we need you guys to help.
Flora and her team have been trecking out into the remoter villages in the North of Lombok for the past month, supporting communities that haven't received initial help. Over the first 6 days we were able to reach and improve the current living situation for over 5000 people. These were families and villages located in the North East of Lombok, including the Rempek area and Penjor. These locations were extremely close to the epicentre of the second earthquake. With a magnitude of 6.9 it completely crumbled everything within a 20 kilometre radius. There is nothing left but rubble and crumbled remains. Car access is extremely difficult in some areas, especially now with recent landslides blocking major roads. In some situations we had to travel by scooter on single-tyre rocky, dirt tracks 10 minutes off the main road to deliver resources. There is no water or basic supplies higher up in these regions. In turn, these people have to travel long distances to get supplies, but as there is currently no system they are not able to get the basic supplies that they need in order to survive." - Flora Christin
With such a high demand for supplies, prices for materials such as water filters have almost tripled. We currently need all the support we can get.
With just $7 USD we can provide a village with clean drinking water.
And with $100 USD, we can build a temporary house in preparation for wet season.
To DONATE go to: https://www.gofundme.com/souls-for-lombok
Words // Jemma Scott @thesalty.dreamers
Video // Kevin Sauzeat @kevinsauzeat
Photos // Jemma Scott and Kevin Sauzeat
