Four days after the Flores quake, some villages say no help has come

The number of dead from the earthquake off Flores has risen to 68, up from 54 a day earlier, with more than 200 people treated for injuries. The harder fact is what has not moved. Four days after the quake, families in Mbay say they have received nothing at all. Al Jazeera reports that 12,800 people still cannot go back to their houses, and that the damage count has passed 1,300 homes, 250 of them destroyed on Flores alone.

Junaidin, a 32-year-old from Mbay, said his neighbours' houses are cracked or collapsed and too dangerous to enter, and that "as for help from the government, there hasn't been any", listing tents, medicine, food and drinking water among the things that had not come. Relief is moving, but mostly through the air. The air force has flown in 13 tonnes of supplies on Hercules transport planes, helicopters are reaching communities the roads no longer serve, and soldiers are handing out goods at collection points. A field hospital is planned across several areas.

Medical care shows the limits of an airlift. The tent hospitals have no blood testing machines and no X-ray equipment, so staff can splint a broken arm but cannot see what is wrong inside a patient. They are also working through the heat of the day under canvas. Many communities are still cut off, and what they are waiting for now is supplies rather than rescue teams.

Why it matters

If you have family on Flores, work on the assumption that nothing arrives by itself yet, and that food, clean water and shelter are what to send or carry in. The test over the coming week is whether the airlift turns into road convoys, because helicopters cannot feed 12,800 people for long. If you are collecting money, cash sent to an established relief group moves faster than boxes of goods while the roads are still broken.