Asia Floods: Race on to Get Emergency Supplies to Cut-off Families as Some Communities Use Canoes to Deliver Aid
Emergency teams are racing to get food and essential supplies to families hit by devastating flooding and landslides in Indonesia with some villages cut-off, while in Sri Lanka, canoes supplied by Save the Children have been used in rescue efforts.
Heavy monsoon rains and tropical cyclones have caused death and destruction across Asia in the past week, with more than 700 people killed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and 564 still missing, while in Sri Lanka 480 people have died and 350 are missing.[1]
Save the Children has sent teams to some of the most difficult-to-access areas on Sumatra including Langkat Regency, Aceh Tamiang, Central Tapanuli and South, where homes have been destroyed, roads are submerged, and communities cut off from power and telecoms.
Fadli Usman, Humanitarian Director of Save the Children Indonesia, said:
"We are also deeply concerned about the areas that response teams have yet to reach. These are very remote villages that are hard to reach at the best of times"
Al Fadhil from Yayasan Geutanyoe, a local partner working with Save the Children, said the conditions were similar to the 2004 Aceh tsunami with the power out, houses destroyed, cars scattered along the roadside, and the internet signal down.
So far, Save the Children has distributed 1,000 packages, or about four truckloads, of temporary shelter supplies and food supplies to affected families and is preparing to set up child-friendly spaces to help children recover as well as providing medical services.
In Sri Lanka, about 360,000 children aged 0-14 are living in areas at risk of flooding or landslides after Cyclone Ditwah, according to a joint assessment carried out by the government and humanitarian agencies, including Save the Children.[2]
However, some communities have managed to respond quickly to the disaster after previously receiving training and equipment, including canoes, from Save the Children.
Pushpa,* 44, escaped from her house on the outskirts of Colombo with her husband and two teenage children when the water came up to her waist.
Her house was later totally submerged. She’s now living with about 400 people in a school that is accommodating about 15 families in each classroom who are sleeping on mats on the concrete floor.
Pushpa* is part of a village disaster management committee (VDMC), an initiative by Save the Children and partner Sarvodaya, to give communities in flood-prone areas the essential equipment and knowledge to respond at speed when disaster hits. The training helped to ensure that no lives were lost in her village, and pre-positioned supplies—including gas cylinders and cooking pots big enough to feed the community—were used.
Pushpa* said:[/p][p"Everyone knew what to do and what their role and responsibility was. At 3am, we used our communication plan to tell everyone in the village to move to the school and the temple—the safe locations we identified when we did the disaster planning. Lives were saved because of the planning.
"I was so proud of my daughter. She knew what to do because of the training and was putting things up high to avoid the rising water and packing bags. She was telling us to leave because the winds were picking up and saying to neighbors ’come, Auntie, we have to move.’"
In another community, canoes supplied earlier by Save the Children were used to rescue stranded people and deliver aid after the area was cut off by floodwaters submerging roads. The village disaster management committee had previously identified what they needed for disaster response.
Julian Chellappah, Country Director, Save the Children Sri Lanka, said:[/p][p"Equipping communities with the tools and knowledge they need to respond when disaster hits is lifesaving. It means that there’s no delay, no need to wait for outside help—people can help themselves.
"This locally led model is not only protecting lives but also building resilience for children and families in areas of Sri Lanka where the climate crisis is fueling extreme weather events. The speed with which communities responded to the disaster shows that climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction are not just concepts"
Save the Children in Sri Lanka is working through partners to enable a locally led response to Cyclone Ditwah. The child rights organization has been working in Sri Lanka since 1974, contributing to both humanitarian and development needs across the country.
Save the Children has been operating in Indonesia since 1976 and works in 20 of 38 provinces on humanitarian responses and programs linked to education, health and nutrition, child protection, and poverty.[/p]
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References:
*Name has been changed
[1] https://www.dmc.gov.lk/images/dmcreports/Situation_Report_at_1600hrs_on_2025__1764765645.pdf
[2] https://www.dmc.gov.lk/images/pdfs/Rapid_Needs_Assessment.pdf
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