About the crisis

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday, September 28. The earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit land at a speed of 800 kph with waves of up to 6m. Killing 2081 people, the majority of whom were in the city of Palu in Central Sulawesi. More than 65,000 houses have been severely damaged or destroyed by the earthquake or tsunami, leaving some 330,000 people without adequate shelter, while 71,000 people displaced by the disaster were staying in displacement sites with limited access to life-saving services.

The Dutch Relief Alliance Response

More than 230,000 people received support in the affected areas of Palu, Sigi, Donggala and Parigi Mountang. Main activities were:

• Shelter/Non Food Items: distribution of emergency shelter materials and non food items, including kitchen, hygiene and bedding kits.
• Food security and livelihoods: distribution of food and supplementary packages.
• WASH: deployment of water tanks, water testing, repair of water points, distribution of WASH and hygiene kits, construction of emergency latrines, training of hygiene promotors to conduct awareness raising sessions, distribution of water filters and water purification tablets, and rehabilitation and maintenance of water supply schemes to allow better access to water, distribution of dignity kits to vulnerable women and adolescent girls.
• Health: rehabilitation of health clinics, provision of emergency health care to injured and other patients, awareness raising to prevent water borne diseases, medical outreach teams, procurement of medicines and supply to hospitals, psychosocial support and trauma counselling, mobile clinics to reach remote areas, revalidation support for injured and newly disabled persons.
• Protection: Establishment of Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) based on needs and availability, to provide a safe space for children and young people to access services. Provision of psychosocial support (PSS) and psychological first aid (PFA) to affected population of girls and boys including adolescents and youth by trained members of the community as well as staff.  Also identifying and refer unaccompanied and separated children to available services including family tracing and reunification. Furthermore protection has been integrated throughout the above mentioned activities and sectors as much as possible. All activities have been tailored to ensure needs of specific groups were taken into account, e.g. in the design of latrines, location of water points and enabling access to health services for all vulnerable groups, especially women and children.
• Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA):  As the JR was flexible and there was a small adjustment in the programming in the beginning of the year (2019), when the context changed on the island. MPCA offered people affected by crises the flexibility and dignity to choose how they wanted to cover their needs, thus offering people a maximum degree of choice.