The South Sumatra provincial government is preparing emergency response assistance to deal with potential hydrometeorological disasters, which have been forecast for the period from December 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.

The emergency response assistance is in the form of food and other items that would be needed by disaster victims, head of the province’s Social Office, Mirwansyah, informed here on Friday.

The assistance includes 200 tons of rice prepared in the provincial storage and 100 tons of aid prepared at district/city storage, which consists of rice, instant food, medicines, and logistics supplies in the form of mattresses and emergency tents.

“The aid logistics have been prepared by the Social Office and the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) as a government reserve post,” Mirwansyah said.

He informed that the aid will be distributed based on calculations of the requirements and the number of victims affected by hydrometeorological disasters.

For example, a flood and whirlwind that struck Ogan Komering Ulu Selatan district last November affected a total of 600 families.

In response to the disaster, the provincial government, through the Social Office and BPBD, distributed 2.5 tons of rice assistance, 450 packages of instant food, and 200 packages of children’s food to the region.

“If conditions are still not conducive, we will extend (the emergency response status) to 30 days,” Mirwansyah said.

In addition, his office has prepared one thousand Disaster Preparedness Cadets (Tagana) across each city/district for deployment to disaster sites.

Furthermore, he said, under the disaster emergency response road map, the most important thing is rescuing people and handling the disaster.

“From all this, of course, we do not want any disaster to happen, but being on standby is important. Therefore, the victims will not experience starvation due to disasters,” he added.

Source: Antara News