Heavy monsoon rains and tropical cyclones have caused death and destruction across Asia in the past week, with more than 700 people killed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and 564 still missing, while in Sri Lanka 480 people have died and 350 are missing1.
Save the Children has sent teams to some of the most difficult-to-access areas on Sumatra including Langkat Regency, Aceh Tamiang, Central Tapanuli and South, where homes have been destroyed, roads are submerged, and communities cut off from power and telecoms.
Fadli Usman, Humanitarian Director of Save the Children Indonesia, said:
"Children have lost everything - their homes and their belongings - and they are out of school. Some children are stressed. Others are living in overcrowded shelters with their families raising, again, child protection concerns.
"We are also deeply concerned about the areas that response teams have yet to reach. These are very remote villages that are hard to reach at the best of times."
Al Fadhil from Yayasan Geutanyoe, a local partner working with Save the Children, said the conditions were similar to the 2004 Aceh tsunami with the power out, houses destroyed, cars are scattered along the roadside, and the internet signal down.
So far, Save the Children has distributed 1,000 packages or about four truckloads of temporary shelter supplies and food supplies to affected families, and is preparing to set up child-friendly spaces to help children recover as well as providing medical services.
In Sri Lanka, about 360,000 children aged 0-14 are living in areas at risk of flooding or landslides after Cyclone Ditwah, according to a joint assessment carried out by the government and humanitarian agencies, including Save the Children2.
However some communities have managed to respond quickly to the disaster after previously receiving training and equipment, including canoes, from Save the Children.
Pushpa*, 44, escaped from her house on the outskirts of Colombo with her husband and two teenage children when the water came up to her waist.
Her house was later totally submerged. She's now living with about 400 people in a school that is accommodating about 15 families in each classroom who are sleeping on mats on the concrete floor.
Pushpa is part of a village disaster management committee (VDMC), an initiative by Save the Children and partner Sarvodaya, to give communities in flood-prone areas the essential equipment and knowledge to respond at speed when disaster hits. The training helped to ensure that no lives were lost in her village, and pre-positioned supplies – including gas cylinders and cooking pots big enough to feed the community – were used.
Pushpa said:
"Everyone knew what to do and what their role and responsibility was. At 3am, we used our communication plan to tell everyone in the village to move to the school and the temple – the safe locations we identified when we did the disaster planning. Lives were saved because of the planning.
"I was so proud of my daughter. She knew what to do because of the training and was putting things up high to avoid the rising water and packing bags. She was telling us to leave because the winds were picking up and saying to neighbours 'come, Auntie, we have to move'."
In another community, canoes supplied earlier by Save the Children were used to rescue stranded people and deliver aid after the area was cut off by floodwaters submerging roads. The village disaster management committee had previously identified what they needed for disaster response.
Julian Chellappah, Country Director, Save the Children Sri Lanka said:
"Equipping communities with the tools and knowledge they need to respond when disaster hits is lifesaving. It means that there's no delay, no need to wait for outside help – people can help themselves.
"This locally led model is not only protecting lives but also building resilience for children and families in areas of Sri Lanka where the climate crisis is fuelling extreme weather events. The speed with which communities responded to the disaster shows that climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction are not just concepts."
Asia is the world's most climate and weather disaster-prone region and is heating up faster than the global average, with increased casualties and economic losses from floods, storms, and more severe heatwaves.3
Save the Children is appealing to governments, donors, and the international community to scale up funding to help current and future generations cope with climate shocks.
Save the Children in Sri Lanka is working through partners to enable a locally led response to Cyclone Ditwah. The child rights organisation has been working in Sri Lanka since 1974, contributing to both humanitarian and development needs across the country.
Save the Children has been operating in Indonesia since 1976 and works in 20 of 38 provinces on humanitarian responses and programmes linked to education, health and nutrition, child protection and poverty.
*Name chaned to protect identity
