BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Clear Path International has formed a partnership with the Bainbridge Island Sumatra Tsunami Relief Fund to provide aid to tsunami survivors in Indonesia and other countries that are also affected by the presence of landmines.

BISTRF was started by Peter Perry and Dea McKibben in the aftermath of the post-Christmas disaster that struck South and Southeast Asia. Perry traveled to the Indonesian island of Sumatra almost immediately to help support a team of doctors and nurses providing care for the tsunami survivors on Aceh.

With support from grassroots donors in the Seattle area and through the sale of Gotong Royong (Indonesian for “Working Together”) bracelets, the Fund’s assistance is providing medical aid, food, cooking equipment, communications and shelter for refugees in Calang and Meulaboh, two of the communities closest to the quake’s epicenter.

Clear Path International, which provides social and medical services to landmine survivors in Southeast Asia, is using its medical equipment and supplies donations program to help tsunami communities. It has already sent a 40-foot container of medical equipment to Chennai on the east coast of India and hopes to send life-saving hospital equipment to Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Communities in Aceh on Sumatra and on Sri Lanka are also affected by the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance, a problem exacerbated by the tsunami which has made areas previously cleared of explosives unsafe again.
Calang, in west Aceh, is being called "ground zero" because it was one of the first to be hit by the tsunami. Before the disaster, 9,000 people lived there. Now Indonesian officials say there are 700 survivors and the town is uninhabitable. Meulaboh is southeast of Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra. Estimated deaths there are 40,000 people out of a population of 120,000. Meulaboh was just 150 km from the epicenter of the earthquake. The tsunami destroyed buildings and washed fishing boats six miles inland.