Quake and Aid
For those of you who haven't been following the news, reading this article and this article would probably help to get background info.
The Indonesian quake happened three days ago but some of the remote villages have only been receiving the needed aid today. Bad news for the 15,000 injured and 100,000 homeless people affected by it. The reason for the slow aid being the bureaucracy involved with the aid distribution process. The pipeline looks like this: aid comes in to the governor's office, then to the counties, then to the subdistricts, and finally to each villages. It has more than four or five layers of local government level.
The good news is that SBY, the president himself is leading the government relief effort team and initiated cutting down the bureaucracies so aids can go directly to needed areas from the provincial office. Lesson learned from the Tsunami disaster two years ago. Numerous voluntary relief effort teams are coming from various student groups, NGOs, and communities alike. It's great to hear how these people unite to help those in need.
Meanwhile the situation in East Timor is not cooling down either, despite the peacekeepers' effort following the crisis.
Any thoughts/comments?
