Body Bags Needed In Indonesia

Body Bags needed In Indonesia.
(post by blog reader -julioalonso99@yahoo.com) - [Only Mailid Available.]

Got the following email from a friend in Jakarta:

In Jakarta, Indonesia community efforts are underway to help the
people in the Aceh region. The parents of my children's K-12 school
are part of an emergency relief hub in Jakarta, providing food,
clothing etc for the people in Aceh and Sumatra. Coming from different
walks of life, people joined forces together to help, much faster than
what the government can do by itself.

sms messages and emails continue to flow sharing the progress, as well
as the frustrations, on handling a disaster on a grand scale like
this.

On a national scale, we have problem as distribution of relief to some
of the affected parts are impossible for the moment due to impossible
land conditions.

as of today dec 28 2004 the death toll in South Asia has exceeded
more than 10.000, Aceh and Sumatra alone accounted for 4000+ of this.

I just heard that another quake happened and things can get worse still.

We severely need bodybag in large quantities. As a country with
predominantly muslim adherents, the religious law dictates that the
deceased be bathed, cleansed, clothed, prayed and then buried within
24 hours time after the time of death. Normally the deceased is
wrapped in long white burial cloth.

This will prove as a daunting task in the days ahead. Last 24 hours
I've received so many stories abound from Indonesian companies having
branch offices in the region, they need to bury their employees, yet
to enter their office compound volunteers have to walk through sea of
corpses. Even finding volunteers to carry the dead and prepare the
burial is already an arduous task.

Given the circumstances, to wrap the deceased in the ritual burial
cloth is both difficult and impractical. Problem is Indonesia do not
produce body bags, and we don't even normally use body bags for
non-natural deaths (e.g. accident, homicide etc) . Throughout Jakarta
for instance, it is difficult to find enough bodybag to fly to
Sumatra. So many relief workers from many organisation are now faced
with the fact that we have too much corpse, too little time, and very
few bodybags.

Imagine the backlog of burials in the following days or weeks. Picture
how a simple item like bodybag will help contain possible epidemic due
to the decomposition of corpses.

Similar situation will happen not only in Indonesia,but it will also
happen for other nations that are hit the worst - Sri Lanka, India,
Thailand come into miy mind.

Any international help to provide body bags to help bury the dead will
be highly appreciated - along with other help for the living such as
medication, ready-to-eat food, clothing, medication, etc.

Please info this to your country relief effort for South Asia disaster.

Thank you, God bless.