SA rescue teams in Indonesia
17 January 2005
As members of one South African rescue team returned from Indonesia last week, another team of pilots and engineers set out for the region, armed with thousands of flight hours and years of rescue experience, to help those struck by the tsunami disaster in South East Asia.
Back from Indonesia, set for Maldives
Last Wednesday, six members of South African humanitarian organisation Global Relief returned from Meulaboh on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province, where they have been involved with providing primary health care services, "psychological first aid", trauma debriefing for children and the retrieval of corpses since their arrival in
the area on 3 January.
"We were one of the first relief groups to arrive", the organisation's chief executive, Murray Louw, told journalists at Johannesburg International Airport, where visibly affected team members were debriefed by one of Global Relief's psychologists.
Murray said the devastation in the tsunami-hit country was overwhelming, adding that the images in the media failed to capture the extent of the devastation. "I cannot describe some of the things that I saw", he said.
According to Global Relief's website, the volunteer team - made up of trained trauma interveners and medical, engineering, and search and rescue personnel - worked under the direction of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The organisation, established after the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey, has since provided services in Turkey, India, Algeria, and more recently in Iran, directly after the earthquake in Bam in December 2003.
While three team members
remain in Meulaboh - two others returned to SA on Thursday, and two more were expected back on Friday - Global Relief was due to send a small team of specialised volunteers to the Maldives on Saturday.
The team, comprising psychological trauma interveners, a businessman, a chemical engineer (salt water specialist) and a logistics expert, aims to provide "psychological first aid" to children on the request of the Maldive authorities.
"They will also make a first-hand assessment of the situation on the ground for possible future involvement", the organisation says on its website.
Pilots, engineers, helicopters
As the Global Relief team was returning from Indonesia last week, another South African rescue mission was setting out - also for Banda Aceh.
With funding from the British government, SA company Starlite Aviation has sent a team of nine - all ex-South African Airforce pilots with thousands of hours of
operational experience - and three helicopters to the region to begin rescue and relief work under the auspices of the United Nations.
"When we saw the disaster on television we realised it was on a very large scale", Slade Thomas, Starlite Aviation CEO, told The Star at Johannesburg International Airport on Wednesday. "We decided immediately to offer help."
According to The Star, the Starlite team will help evacuate casualties and transport food, medical supplies, and vital equipment needed to begin the reconstruction of the region. Their mission will last for six months, with crews rotating every four weeks.
"It is very special to us to go out there", Thomas said. "We'll do our bit to help, and fly the South African flag at the same time."
Govt's R4m rescue cargo flight
The Starlite team was not the first South African helicopter rescue to arrive in Indonesia, however.
On January 7, a seven-man team of
four helicopter pilots, two engineers and a doctor - all volunteers - set out for Indonesia via the Seychelles and the Maldives on board a 190-ton cargo plane jam-packed with two helicopters, five tons relief supplies and a mobile water purification plant.
The mission was funded by the SA government in partnership with US non-governmental organisation Air Serv International, with South Africa spending R4-million and Airserv pledging to match this amount.
Chief helicopter pilot Michael McDougall, who has flown with Air Serv in Mozambique, Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times: "It's satisfying to know we can go where others can't. We are the first rescue effort and helicopter team from South Africa."
Bringing them home
SA's first tsunami mission, however, was to rescue South Africans who were in South East Asia when the tsunamis struck.
On 29 December, a R2-million rescue mission co-ordinated by the SA
government, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, Netcare and Discovery Health returned from Phuket Island off Thailand with 68 South Africans who survived the tsunami disaster - and the bodies of four who did not.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies identified the victims as Morris Isaacson, Roy Fitzsimmons, Daphne Coetzee and Dolores Ribeiro.
On board the 747 Boeing - on loan from Nationwide Airlines - was a 20-strong Netcare 911 rescue team comprising five doctors, five nurses and 10 paramedics, as well as two Department of Foreign Affairs consular service officers and two Home Affairs officials to help with the rapid evacuation of the South Africans.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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