BANTEN (Indonesia): The Global Peace Mission of Malaysia delegation has reached the transit assistance centre for Sunda Straits tsunami victims in Kampung Tangkil Sari here after enduring seven hours of traffic congestion around the district of Pandeglang.
The village is functioning as a transit centre for supplies of assistance for the disaster stricken districts of Sumur and Labuan.
For the mission, GPM which is headed by Syahrir Azfar Saleh with Amirul Asraf Mat Arif is assisted by three Bernama representatives, namely journalist Muhammad Afiq Mohd Asri, Bernama News Channel journalist Siti Zanariah Nor Zin as well as cameraman Mohammad Hafiz Ahmad Kamal travelled from Pandeglang at about 5.40pm yesterday and arrived at the village at about 1 am.
Earlier, the team found stocks of daily necessities were still limited in Pandeglang a small town located about 100km from Jakarta.
“We faced an extremely bad traffic jam and had difficulties in finding essential goods as supply is still limited which forced us to move from shop to shop to get our supplies,” said Syahrir.
Among the items the mission team managed to acquire included school shoes and uniforms as well as disposal diapers and daily necessities such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, milk, meat, eggs and drinking water.
After loading the essential items into two vehicles in Pandeglang, the team eventually arrived in Kampung Tangkil Sari early this morning.
Based on the schedule, the mission members would be packing the items to be distributed to tsunami victims before proceeding to Sumur and Labuan at noon.
The mission is expected to carry on until Jan 24 and members of the public can contribute via www.billplz.com/peduliselatsunda or deposit into Bank Global Peace Mission through its accounts in Maybank Islamic (5642-2161-1602); Bank Islam (1402-30100-29224); and Affin Islamic Bank (1051-9000-2871).
Tsunami swept the Sunda Straits on Dec 22 following a seabed eruption from Anak Krakatau.
To date, the Indonesian National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure (BNPB) reported more than 400 people died while 30,000 lost their homes in the disaster. – Bernama
