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RI ramps up efforts to locate remaining 5 citizens
The government has stepped up its efforts to locate five Indonesians still missing in Nepal, including three mountain-climbing enthusiasts from Bandung, West Java, who were reportedly stranded on the Himalayan mountain range when a disastrous 7
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he government has stepped up its efforts to locate five Indonesians still missing in Nepal, including three mountain-climbing enthusiasts from Bandung, West Java, who were reportedly stranded on the Himalayan mountain range when a disastrous 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region last week.
On Saturday, in a press conference held at the government's humanitarian aid and evacuation center at the Kathmandu Guest House in Thamel, Kathmandu, the Indonesian Ambassador to Bangladesh and Nepal, Iwan Wiranataatmadja, said a search and rescue (SAR) team had been deployed on the ground to find the three missing Indonesians.
Iwan said the expedition had traversed the mountain range to Gerang town on Saturday, between three and four hours away on foot from the village of Dhunche in Rasuwa district, where it is believed the three Taruna Hiking Club (THC) members were last seen.
Alma Parahita, Kadek Andana and Jeroen Hehuwat, the three mountain-climbing enthusiasts, had not yet been found despite several attempts to skirt the mountain by helicopter days before.
Iqbal said the previous nine sorties carried out on the mountain range returned empty-handed.
The Foreign Ministry's director for the protection of Indonesian citizens and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, earlier said authorities planned to airlift the Bandung trio by helicopter ' either using a military unit, one provided by Himalaya Experience as the climbers' insurer, or one chartered by the ministry.
'We're continuously working with cellular providers in Indonesia and Nepal to help identify the most likely coordinates [for the three Indonesians],' Iqbal told The Jakarta Post early on Saturday.
Besides sending a ground team to locate the three mountain climbers, the Indonesian SAR operation led by Ambassador Iwan was also on the lookout for the remaining three Indonesians in a number of other locations in Kathmandu.
Iwan's team had inspected five places in the Nepali capital on Friday ' TU Hospital, Bir Hospital, Norvic Hospital, the Nepali Army base and Tribuvan Airport ' and concluded that there were no deceased or injured Indonesians in any of those places.
'The team also left contact numbers in all the sites we searched just in case new information emerges the next day. We even left descriptions of the three THC members with the forensics team at a hospital,' Iwan said in a statement.
According to the latest ministry data, only one of the 31 Indonesians who are registered as residents in Nepal could not be contacted by the authorities. The status of the 30 others has been confirmed.
Furthermore, out of the 66 Indonesian citizens visiting Nepal at the time of the earthquake, 34 are known to be safe and in contact with authorities, while 27 others have already left the country. The remaining five people, including the Bandung trio, have yet to be contacted.
Meanwhile, Natural Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the agency had sent off the next wave of disaster relief on Saturday, with 14 tons of aid flying into Nepal on a Cardig airplane, despite reports that sufficient supplies had been distributed in Kathmandu and Sindhupalchowk.
He said authorities were looking to use a number of helicopters to distribute the aid to more remote areas. 'The limited access to roads and communications to remote areas has hampered aid distribution. Helicopters are currently in large demand,' he told the Post on Saturday.
All three previous disaster relief deliveries, worth upwards of US$2 million, had arrived and had been distributed to the Nepali authorities.
According to Sutopo, the death toll in Nepal has risen to 6,250 people, while another 14,357 were injured in the aftermath of the earthquake and its aftershocks. As many as 160,786 homes were destroyed and another 143,673 sustaining significant damage.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that around 2.8 million people have had to evacuate their premises, while another 3.5 million are in dire need of disaster relief.
