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Foreign medical teams offer health care in Indonesia

Foreign medical teams reached further into Indonesia’s disaster zone yesterday, treating victims of last week’s massive earthquake but also dealing with crowds wanting help for other illnesses.

Like most of Indonesia, West Sumatra had no functioning health system even before the quake and an influx of international aid has prompted all sorts of people to seek help.

Large parts of the provincial capital of Padang and villages in nearby mountains were flattened in the Sept. 30 quake or buried by landslides. The official death toll stood yesterday at 704 but could reach into the thousands. Around 180,000 buildings — half of them homes — were severely damaged or flattened, Indonesia’s Disaster Management Agency said.

Many villages were swept away by landslides in the remote hilly terrain to Padang’s north. Roads were severed or so badly damaged that they are only passable on foot or motorbike, prompting some survivors to complain that aid was too slow in coming.

Aid workers from at least 20 countries are descending on West Sumatra, including the largest contingent of US military since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed around 130,000 people in nearby Aceh Province.

“We have treated nearly 400 people in the past four days,” said Yoshi Kazu Yamada, the deputy of a Japanese medical team in Padang Pariaman district, where about 100 people were lining up outside tents waiting for treatment.

“At first it was flesh wounds, but now it is more people seeking help for chronic conditions like diabetes,” he said. “These problems were not caused by the quake but they need care. Our facilities are free so people are coming from all around the region — people who would not have gone to see a doctor before.”

Efforts have shifted the search for survivors to providing relief to cut off villages and those left homeless — many of them huddling in makeshift shelters and cook meager meals of rice and noodles over open fires or eat vegetables from their fields.
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