Indonesian Catholic center receives request for more body bags

Published: 2005-01-03

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNS) -- Despite the great need for food, water and medicines, among the requests received by the Indonesian bishops' crisis center in Jakarta from volunteers in the stricken Aceh province was for more body bags. "People in Aceh have asked us to send more body bags because many of the bodies have not been evacuated yet," Father Ignatius Ismartono, chairman of the center, told UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. In Indonesia, all but a few hundred of the country's 94,000 casualties were in Aceh on the northern end of Sumatra Island, near the epicenter of an undersea earthquake that sent huge waves crashing into the island's coastline and causing casualties from Malaysia to Africa. Moments after the disaster struck, concerned Indonesians swarmed the crisis center wanting to help the victims in Aceh and on Nias Island off the western coast of Sumatra, Father Ismartono said. The center began channeling donations to the affected areas Dec. 30, he said.

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