|
On April 11, an aid ship went down off Nias Island,
Sumatra. This is its story.
One of IDEP’s recent initiatives was to plan a delivery of
emergency and reconstruction aid on the Endless
Sun,
a private cargo boat. It had taken several weeks to refit the
vessel and load it with supplies in Jakarta.
The vessel was fully loaded with aid supplies, kitchen equipment,
reconstruction materials and tools, three motor bikes for
delivering goods on shore, and children’s school supplies.
Just as the boat was preparing to set sail for Aceh, a devastating
earthquake
hit the island of Nias. The Endless Sun was
diverted to deliver aid there, carrying rice, two generators,
a motorbike
and a replacement SSB radio set for volunteers in Nias in
addition to its existing cargo.
Aboard the ship was a crew of 15 from Java, Rama Surya, an
Indonesian volunteer and three foreign volunteers including
Gary Turner
and Stefan Zwada who had already served two aid missions
in Sumatra and team leader James Bean.
The Endless Sun had
just finished off-loading a shipment of emergency rice
aid from the World Food Program
to the village
of Afulu on the afternoon of April 11. The day was
hot and clear, with enormous swells rolling in from the open ocean.
At the shoreline,
huge expanses of coral had been thrust up from under
the sea by the earthquake, bleaching in the sun. Knowing the
seabed would
also be treacherous, the crew steered slowly and carefully
as they
made their way out of the inlet bound for Meulaboh.
About three o’clock, the Endless Sun suddenly
smashed against an uncharted reef. Broken glass and
equipment flew around the deck as the vessel quickly heeled heavily
to starboard
and lost steerageway. Although the men could see the
USS Mercy on the horizon, it was using a different radio system
and the Endless
Sun’s distress calls were unheard.
Pounded between two reefs by the swells, it was quickly
clear that the ship would not survive. There was
no time to save
papers, passports,
visas or money; within a few minutes of striking
the reef, the wooden vessel began to break up. Wearing
life jackets
and little
else, the crew and volunteers abandoned ship.
Coral reefs all along the earthquake zones below Sumatra's
offshore islands were raised above sea level; A crewman abandons
ship.
|
They were about 700 metres from the nearest shore.
Some swam, others were picked up by a local fishing
boat and
several
made their way
ashore on the ship’s life raft. All 20 men
survived without serious injury, landing singly or
in groups on the banks of exposed
coral that blocked the beach.
“
The swells were huge and some of the crew couldn’t swim,” Gary
recalls. “It was a miracle that no one was killed.”
The
next miracle unfolded in the next few hours. As heavy
seas pounded the newly refurbished Endless
Sun to pieces,
the hull released its cargo. About 80% of the
aid on board washed ashore. Carefully wrapped
and sealed by volunteers in Jakarta,
most of it was salvaged by the coastal community.
So the emergency aid was delivered after all,
if somewhat informally.
The shipwrecked men, shocked and sunburned, picked
their way barefoot in small groups over a kilometre
of exposed
coral
until they were
able to meet up and ensure that no one was
missing. But the ordeal was not over. There were no communications
in the
town. The team
leader and an Indonesian volunteer hired two
local men
with motorbikes to take them across Nias to
Gunung
Sitole for
help, a grueling
journey along ruined roads and collapsed bridges.
The rest of the group slept on a floor in the
village. There were
two strong
earthquakes
that night.
The next day they left the village and walked
barefoot three kilometres to a helipad, where
they were
eventually evacuated
to Gunung Sitole
and still later to Sibolga. Then there was
a crazy drive to Medan through Sumatra’s steep mountains, and a final adventure
of talking their way onto flights to Jakarta and Bali without
shoes or shirts.
The afternoon of April 12, IDEP issued a
press release and update with all the information
it had been able
to gather
from handphone
calls. Then the third miracle happened.
Within days, donors pledged more than enough money
to replace
virtually all
of IDEP’s
aid supplies that had been on the boat. About US$40,000 was donated,
over half by Rip Curl Australia and its staff.
“Robert Wilson of Rip Curl Australia has been wonderful,” declared
Petra Schneider, executive director of
IDEP. “The company
assisted IDEP in the very early days
of the emergency when it was the key donor of the Sumber Rejeki, our
first emergency
aid ship.
Again, Robert was first to come to the
table when help was needed after the Endless Sun was lost. Rip
Curl has consistently been a tremendously generous and responsive donor.”
By April 19, IDEP was purchasing aid
in Medan. On April 21, just ten days
after
the aid
ship sank off
Nias,
the supplies
were
on their way to a community near
Meulaboh, Samatiga where IDEP has established one
of its recovery projects, including a clinic,
since
early February.
The men are safely home now, but the
energy of the shipwreck is still
with them. They
feel shaky.
They
have bad dreams.
And yet they want to go back and
finish
the job they started. “I don’t think there’s single one of
us who wouldn’t go back to Aceh tomorrow,” says Stefan. “There’s
still so much to be done.”
Perhaps that is the fourth miracle. |
