The two students are Mr. Clinton Smith of Disaster Preparedness,
Mitigation and Management (DPMM) program in AIT’s School of
Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) and Ms. Albane
Coeurquetin of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of School
of Engineering and Technology (SET).
The TSF team led by Mr. Oisin Walton, Delegate for Asia-Pacific,
arrived at Padang on 28 October 2010 enroute to Mentawai Islands.
Padang is still recovering from the earthquake in 2009. Mr. Walton met
the heads of the Regional Centre of Badan Nasional Penanggulangan
Bencana (BNPB) to determine the priority areas on the four affected
islands. BNPB is the agency in charge of disaster management. The TSF
team is leaving on a boat for South Pagai Island at 17.00 hours local
time and after a trip of 12 hours shall reach the Island by 29 October
2010.
According to BNPB, there is no communication in some parts of South
Pagai island. South and North Pagai have been most affected and some
parts are currently completely isolated. So far 150 people have died
and over 500 are missing out of a total population of 40,000. Some
witnesses have also mentioned a six meter-high wave in some parts of
the island.
On 25 October, a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake had struck western
Indonesia, causing a deadly tsunami that swept the Mentawai islands off
the coast of Sumatra.