Thousands of families in Cianjur district are still homeless and in desperate need of shelter after this week’s devastating earthquake.
Large families are crammed into single tents, without access to safe water or medicine, and a downpour of rain in the past 48 hours has left many babies and children soaked and at risk of illness.
An Islamic Relief assessment of several affected villages found that 80% of homes have been severely damaged or destroyed, along with schools, mosques and health centres. At least 271 people are confirmed dead so far – mostly children – but this toll is expected to rise as hundreds of people are still missing. Some remote villages have still not been reached by emergency teams. At least 68,908 people are now homeless.
Islamic Relief emergency teams are on the ground in Cianjur district and are providing emergency shelter to homeless families, working in coordination with Indonesian authorities. The charity plans to support 10,000 families with shelter, food and hygiene kits, as well as setting up temporary schools, rebuilding livelihoods and repairing water and sanitation services.
Rahadiansyah Fachrudin, Islamic Relief’s Local Resource Mobilization Coordinator, is supporting the response in Cijendil village. He says:
“So many people here have lost their homes and are now staying in a temporary camp. There are 7,000 people in the camp but there’s no electricity and there are only a few toilets, so there is a real risk of diseases spreading if people have to stay here much longer. They’ve lost everything as they had to flee quickly without even a change of clothes.
“People urgently need safe shelter to protect their privacy and dignity, and for protection from the rain. We’ve had continuous rain here in the last two days.
“People are worried for their missing relatives and fear that the death toll will continue to rise. People here were buried under mudslides and many are still missing and unaccounted for. They’re also terrified of further aftershocks. Much of the village’s infrastructure is destroyed – the main hospital was damaged so it is struggling to treat the large number of patients and many families don’t have access to medical care
“Most people in these villages are farmers, and the earthquake destroyed their equipment, ruined their crops and livestock are missing. This village and others like it will need a lot of support to rebuild.”
