6/1/06

Indonesian villagers plead for food, death toll rises

Survivors searched for scraps of tin and other materials to rebuild destroyed homes. Others blocked traffic to plead for money or placed flower pots and trash cans on streets to slow traffic and beg for donations.

Officials in remote corners of hardest-hit Bantul district reported 388 additional deaths after phone lines were restored and roads and bridges were repaired. In the village of Topriaten, survivors said they had only received a single bag of rice from local authorities for 140 people. Only a few houses survived the quake, but no tents had arrived, forcing scores of villagers to live beneath makeshift tarps.

Many are living under plastic sheets near their former homes, in rice fields or on roadsides, their misery compounded by days of intermittent rain and blazing sun. Many still wore the clothes they had on when the quake struck.

Several foreign militaries have contributed to the relief effort, with Japan announcing Thursday it was dispatching 140 troops to provide medical assistance, supplies and other humanitarian support.

Dozens of U.S. Marines were providing care at a portable field hospital on a soccer field in the town of Sewon, the latest of several American relief missions in predominantly Muslim nations.
One U.S. Marine said the current relief effort could serve as a cultural bridge. "When you help people, you become friends," said 1st Lt. Eric Tausch, from a U.S. Marine division based in Okinawa, Japan.

CNN

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