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s many as 126 people who were injured in the 2006 Java earthquake and 2010 Mount Merapi eruptions will receive free treatment this week at Dr. Soeradji Tirtonegoro Hospital in Klaten, Central Java, to remove the metal pins implanted in their bodies to repair broken bones.

“Starting today between five and six patients will undergo pin removal operations a day,” the hospital’s public relations officer, Petrus Tri Joko, said in Klaten on Wednesday. He added that the service would be available until the end of January.

Of the 126 patients, according to Petrus, 50 percent suffered fractures in their legs, 30 percent in their arms and 20 percent in other parts of the body.

Of the patients, 70 percent were injured in the 2006 earthquakes that devastated Yogyakarta and southern parts of Central Java, 20 percent were injured in the 2010 Merapi eruptions and 10 percent come from poor families in the regency.

In the aftermath of the 2006 earthquakes, the hospital treated more than 300 survivors. During the Merapi eruptions it treated more than 700 patients, including for severe burns, bone fractures and mental trauma.

One of the patients undergoing pin removal surgery, Semiyono, 48, said he was grateful for the free service. A resident of Bangunrejo, Muruh subdistrict, Gantiwarno district in Klaten, Semiyono suffered spine fractures after one of the walls of his house collapsed on him following the 5.9-magnitude earthquake.

“I was sleeping when the earthquake happened that morning. When I woke up, I could not move my body. I was rescued by an evacuation team that found me under the rubble,” Semiyono said.

He was taken to Dr. Soeradji Tirtonegoro Hospital and treated there for 24 days. However, he said, he was able to walk again after only eight months after undergoing surgery at the same hospital and eventually was able to work in rice fields again 1.5 years after the operation.

“But things are not the same these days as I can no longer lift anything heavier than 25 kilograms,” he said.

The 2006 earthquakes killed nearly 6,000 people and displaced 1.5 million others in Yogyakarta and some parts of Central Java, with Bantul (Yogyakarta) and Klaten (Central Java) the worst-hit regencies. The earthquake also destroyed 300,000 houses as well as public facilities.