Japan NGO Giving Medical Aid in Flood-Hit Indonesia

Aceh Tamiang, Indonesia, Dec. 23 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese nongovernmental organization is giving medical assistance on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where deadly floods have caused heavy damage with many local residents still evacuated.

According to the Indonesian disaster countermeasure agency, the total number of fatalities from the disaster, caused by heavy rain in late November, stood at 1,106 as of Monday.

The Association of Medical Doctors of Asia, or AMDA, which is based in the western Japan city of Okayama, sent a medical team earlier this month to Aceh Tamiang on northern Sumatra.

AMDA, set up in 1984, provides medical services in areas in and outside Japan that have been affected by disasters or conflict. It also has an office in Indonesia.

In Aceh Tamiang, local residents are still without running water, while a key hospital has been damaged. Local sanitary conditions have deteriorated in Aceh Tamiang, where the death toll reached 88.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]