Emergency Telecoms Aid on Standby for Indonesian Earthquake Victims

Following the powerful earthquake which struck the island of Sumatra, near Padang, at 10.49 local time, Telecoms San Frontiers (TSF) says that it is on standby and ready to deploy an emergency crew if needed.

TSF is in contact with United Nations representatives in the region and made an offer of assistance to the Indonesian government. At 10.00 am GMT, 70 people had been reported killed and hundreds are wounded. TSF is currently gathering more information on the situation in telecommunications

Telecoms sans Frontieres is a humanitarian NGO specialising in emergency telecommunications. Thanks to a permanent monitoring centre, as soon as a catastrophe or conflict is announced, its teams can intervene anywhere in the world and in less than 48 hours. They install an operational telecommunications centre right at the heart of the event.

The idea for TSF was the result of a simple observation made after many years' experience with general humanitarian charities. During missions in ex-Yugoslavia, and in Kurdistan during the Gulf War, its founders realized that as well as medical or food aid, there was a real need for telecommunications.

These conflicts often led to massive displacements of populations, separated families, and no communications infrastructure was in place to help these people contact their relatives.

TSF offers victims of disasters or conflicts the possibility to break out of their isolation. After an earthquake when all the networks are destroyed, or in refugee camps which only have a very basic telecommunications infrastructure, the population is often totally cut off from the rest of the world. Being able to telephone is vital in these situations: to find dispersed family members, to contact relatives and thus maybe obtain immediate personalised help, or simply to say " I'm still alive ".

You can read more at their website: http://www.tsfi.org/ - and make a donation online to their general emergency works if you wish. "

Posted to the site on 7th March 2007