Hospital Supplies Desperately Needed For Quake Victims 

YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA - Medical and evacuation centers in Central Java are overflowing as volunteers and aid organizations begin to the relief effort after Saturday’s massive earthquake, which killed at least 46 hundred people.  

Nearly every building in Bantul, Yogyakarta’s southern district, was shaken to rubble by Saturday’s earthquake. At the Panembahan Senopati hospital, hundreds of patients wait on straw mats and blankets for treatment. Surgical procedures such as setting bones and stitching wounds are being carried out in the open air, while vanloads of the injured continue to pour in from rural areas.

Hospital coordinator Daburidiah says medical supplies are running short, and more patients are on the way.

“Right now we need tools for operations,” Daburidiah says. “Metal plates and pins for broken bones, sutures, tetanus and antibiotic medication.  All of these things are in short supply, because most people here have suffered serious fractures.”

He says the number of patients at the hospital has decreased since yesterday.  Some are returning to their villages, and 32 died during Sunday night.

UNICEF estimates that 130,000 people were made homeless by the earthquake.

Relief organizations such as UNICEF, Oxfam and the World Food Program were distributing truckloads of supplies Monday.  W.F.P. officials say the organization is distributing 100 metric tons of food to hospitals and disaster relief posts throughout the devastated area.