Catholics in Indonesia have launched a solidarity drive to help the earthquake victims. Essential supplies, tents, household items and small sums of money. Many have joined the initiative promoted, among other means, through an intense exchange of e-mails and a page on the social network Facebook.
On September an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale hit Tasikmalaya in West Java province, about 300 km south-east of Jakarta. The latest toll is 70 dead, 966 injured, 32 people still missing and some 5400 refugees, whose homes in the Regency of Tasikmalaya, Cianjur and Ciamis have been destroyed. About 7 thousand buildings collapsed because of the earthquake.
From the very start the Indonesian Church mobilised itself to bring first aid and now it is also promoting a solidarity drive among the faithful of the country. Bishop Johannes Pujasumarta, of Bandung, the capital of West Java, is among the first to have urged bishops and faithful to "do good" at this moment of "suffering". He urged all ex-seminarians to begin raising funds in cash and basic necessities for the refugees. The initiative was circulated by e-mail and on the Facebook page belonging to the Indonesian prelate.
Not only the faithful of the diocese, but most Catholics throughout Indonesia have responded to the call "with enthusiasm". Every parish of the Diocese of Jakarta and Lampung has promoted the collection of money, clothes, non perishable food and utensils.
Father Agus Nind Nikolas, Pr, pastor of the Church of Mary Immaculate in Garut, recounts the shock of the victims: "Those who arrived in our clinic - says the priest - said they felt a pain in their head, but they then automatically indicated their stomach ... this is not an inventions, something serious must have happened in their minds, a sort of post-stress syndrome". Perdhaki Catholic medical centre, based in Jakarta, has offered its assistance "to people living in remote areas that no one else is interested in helping."
Father Riana Prabdi, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Semarang, has sent a team into the area; the Catholic University of Parahyangan in Bandung, sent a group of students from the faculty of architecture for a first reconstruction of the houses; priests of the Sacred Heart have joined the initiative. "Doing something good for others - concludes father Nikolas - makes our life more happy and bright”. Reported by Mathias Hariyadi.
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