LUWU (10 May 2024) - The Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) responded quickly and responsibly to flood and landslide victims in Luwu Regency, South Sulawesi. The immediate response includes setting up evacuee tents, distributing various logistical aid, and establishing public kitchens in four locations: Suli District, the Andi Djemma Belopa Stadium, Botta Village, and Bajo Village.

Floods and landslides in Luwu Regency happened early Friday (3/5) at around 01.15 a.m., killing 13 people, affecting over 3,500 families, and displacing more than 210 people. Shortly after the incident, a MoSA team went straight to the scene to care for the victims, including setting up a public kitchen. "We established the first public kitchen at the Andi Djemma Belopa Stadium on Friday (3/5) morning," stated Yusri (46), the Head of the Belopa Public Kitchen Team and a Disaster Response Volunteer (Tagana). Currently, the team provides thousands of packs of meals per day, with an average of 880 packs for breakfast and 2,000 packs for lunch and dinner.

Yusri said that the public kitchen personnel consisted of members of Tagana, the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), Scouts, The Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), the Civil Service Police Unit (Satpol PP), as well as volunteers from the community. Apart from providing food for evacuees, this public kitchen also supplies food to people who are still isolated due to the flood. Meanwhile, other MoSA public kitchens serve flood victims in ten areas in Luwu Regency.

Maimunah (42), a vocational school teacher and also a resident of Bajo Village, decided to open her house as a temporary shelter. There are currently 157 families and 173 people living in her home and MoSA tent in Bajo Village. "Thank God, help is still arriving. MoSA is working rapidly to respond to the crisis here," she stated.

Aside from establishing public kitchens, MoSA continues to supply the basic needs of evacuees, by providing raw food items, kitchen spices, and cooking utensils to support public kitchens. MoSA also supplies logistics in the form of roll-up tents, mattresses, ready-to-eat food, blankets, kids' ware, and family kits which are distributed to several evacuation points.

Various aid was also delivered to catastrophe victims who remained isolated. Aside from that, aid was sent to catastrophe victims in several districts, including Latimojong, Belopa, North Belopa, Larompong, South Larompong, Suli, West Suli, Bajo, West Bajo, Kamanre, South Ponrang, and Bua Ponrang.