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UN food agency provides aid after earthquake and tsunami kill hundreds in Indonesia

UN food agency provides aid after earthquake and tsunami kill hundreds in Indonesia

Following yesterday’s deadly earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit Indonesia’s island of Java, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is today sending two truckloads of food assistance to the survivors, as estimates of the number dead, injured and missing in the disaster climbed toward 600, with 30,000 others displaced.

Following yesterday’s deadly earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit Indonesia’s island of Java, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is today sending two truckloads of food assistance to the survivors, as estimates of the number dead, injured and missing in the disaster climbed toward 600, with 30,000 others displaced.

The aid comes after UN teams were despatched on Monday to the worst-hit areas in West and Central Java and was requested by Indonesian authorities, the agency said, adding that the assistance consists of 15 metric tonnes of high-energy biscuits and micronutrient noodles while two other trucks are on standby.

“According to the Indonesia Red Cross, some 256 people have died, 127 are missing and 200 injured by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest situation report, adding that the number of casualties continues to increase and the worst-hit area appears to be the Pangandaran resort town in West Java.

Sixty per cent of the 30,000 or so people displaced by the disaster are from the Pangadaran area according to the two UN teams sent to the affected regions immediately after the earthquake hit on Monday afternoon local time, WFP said. Three field kitchens have now been set up in the region and food is being distributed, it added.

An earthquake in May that also hit Java killed more than 5,000 people and injured more than 8,000, while parts of the country are still recovering from an earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island in December 2004 that caused a devastating tsunami which killed more than 230,000 people and affected more than 12 countries in Asia.