Family caught in Indonesian earthquake evacuated safely
A LOCAL family caught up in the Indonesian earthquake while holidaying in the Gili Islands have been evacuated to safety after helping those injured.
Helen and Andy Green were with their daughters Abbie and Jemma in Gili Air when the earthquake, which has killed more than 100 people and left 20,000 people homeless, struck.
They were having dinner on the beach at the time, just 20km from the epicentre.
Abbie, 20, spoke of the panic in the region in the aftermath of the shock.
‘We were in Gili Air when the 7.0 earthquake happened,’ she said.
‘We stayed there overnight in a makeshift camp in the highest open ground, which was only 1.5m above sea level, before being evacuated from the island at six the following morning,’ she said.
It was a worrying evening before being evacuated, she said.
‘The local government issued a tsunami warning as general procedure so we were really panicking about that, but that was cancelled later on in the night.
‘No one seemed to know what was going on and all the local people were screaming and praying loudly with every aftershock.’
Medically trained professionals – two vets, a nurse and a dentist – treated the casualties in the camp, which they made in the middle of the island because of the threat of a tsunami, as best they could.
There were around 400 to 500 people in the camp the family were in but there were also smaller camps scattered around.
‘There were three locals that were badly injured, people were trying to give first aid with the minimal supplies there.
‘My dad and other people were carrying them down on sunbeds to the port to try and get them evacuated.
‘Dad helped carry the one fatality to the boats.
‘There was one man who was very badly crushed and they had to use our sarongs to tie him down to the sunbed for his spinal injury.’
The family were allowed to go back to their hotel room in Gili Air to collect their belongings before being evacuated.
‘In the morning the whole island queued to get onto boats that charged around £5,’ she added.
‘It was all pretty calm actually, we had to be careful about having too many people on the pier because it looked like it was close to collapsing. Once we got to Lombok, however, it was very chaotic with so many tourists trying to get out and trying to get taxis and buses – it was really scary.’
In Lombok, Kuta, they then managed to find a hotel room in the south of the region.
‘I understand we were quite lucky to because everywhere got booked up very quickly with people trying to get away from the north.
‘We are about as far away as we can get from the epicentre now, which is very relieving,’ Abbie added.
‘It is so lucky that we left Gili when we did because we felt another strong aftershock happen last night and the epicentre was very close to where we were before.
‘We were thinking about leaving for England straight away, but all the flights were full from people trying to get away from the island.
‘We’re pretty sure we are safe down here now, the tremors we feel are very minor, so we are just going to wait it out until our flight on Friday.’
Gili Air is the second biggest of the three Gili Islands.
Abbie said the evacuation from Gili T, the biggest island, looked like it was a lot more chaotic.
The earthquake itself did not seem too bad at the time because they were outside, she said, but it was later that the devastation became apparent.
‘The waiter came over to see if we were OK and we asked for a corkscrew to open our bottle of wine, none of us really realised how serious it was then.’
