United Nations Radio

Tens of thousands of Indonesians have been forced to flee their homes after a deadly quake there last week. UNICEF Radio spoke with Indonesia's Communications Specialist Lely Djuhari about how the country is coping with the crisis:

Lely Djuhari: The full scale of the disaster is much bigger than initially thought. There are fears of more than a thousand people killed from the earthquake and the death toll is still expected to rise and tens of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes and a third of those affected are estimated to be children.

What are the risks right now for children and families going forward?

Lely Djuhari: Children who survived the quake are at an extreme risk of illnesses - these include diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections and outbreaks of disease that can be prevented easily by vaccines such as measles and polio and because of the nature of earthquakes the risk of tetanus is very high due to injuries and open wounds. And they must have access to clean water, to shelter and to help in overcoming the aftermath of the earthquake.

What does it look like on the streets there? can you kind of describe to us what it looks like?

Lely Djuhari: There are cracks on the road and in the neighbouring city of Pariaman? There's even cracks as long as 1 kilometer and there's a lot of movement on the street and a lot of effort and a lot of effort being put into trying to evacuate the survivors trapped under rubble

Can u tell us any stories of people that you met or individuals that you spoke with on the ground there about they've gone through over the last day?

Lely Djuhari: This earthquake really took them by surprise. The earthquake struck at 5 pm and this would have been a time when children are awake and there are fears many of them are still trapped. And we see many, many live reports from Indonesian tv here from parents who spoke of being separated from their children

What is UNICEF doing to help?

Lely Djuhari: UNICEF is ready to support the Indonesian government and tackle the immediate needs and we have to ensure the availability of clean water , sanitation facilities and hygiene kits and one of the most important role for UNICEF is to raise awareness of the critical need to continue breastfeeding for mothers in affected areas and in Indonesia, it's quite common for people, millions of people to donate lots and lots of formula milk not knowing that this could actually cause more harm than benefits. Lack of clean water, it's very difficult to prepare formula milk so we know from our research that there will be an increase in incidents of diarrhea and finally, our priority is to get children back to school as soon as possible because this can build a sense of normalcy and we're ready to provide emergency kits, early childhood care kits, school tents and school in a box and restorational kits.

PRESENTER: That was Lely Djuhari, Communications Officer with UNICEF, Indonesia.

Duration:  2'43"