Going Where Disaster Strikes in Indonesia

Six men piled into a Land Rover and set off along a road that turned and twisted up into the hills of Cikelet in Garut, West Java, skirting steep cliffs and ravines. After a bone-shaking ride, the men, all members of an outdoor organization called Wanadri, arrived safely at a quake-affected village in Cikelet, delivering blankets, sarongs and rice.

At the end of a hard day’s work at the disaster scene, the men headed back to the camp for displaced persons in Pamalayan village, Cikelet, where they spent the evening like most others: sitting around a campfire recounting their experiences. A Sundanese song played on a hidden radio and pale moonbeams filtered through the trees as they sipped instant coffee and tallied up the damage to buildings in the village.

Since it was founded in Bandung in 1964, Wanadri — the name derives from the Sanskrit for forest (wana) and mountain (adri) — has been directly involved in disaster relief work around the country, as well as search-and-rescue operations in the archipelago’s mountains, rivers and seas.

And in the first few days and weeks after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck West Java on Sept. 2, the men based themselves at the camp for displaced persons in Cikelet, speeding the delivery of relief and other aid donated by private companies to the disaster areas. At just 35 kilometers from the epicenter of the quake, Cikelet was one of the worst- affected subdistricts.

No one knows when disaster will strike, but Wanadri strives to be there whenever it is needed.

The group has responded to numerous national disasters, including the eruption of Mount Galunggung in West Java in 1982, the tsunami in Aceh in 2004, and two years later in Pangandaran, West Java, the earthquake that jolted Yogyakarta, also in 2006, and this year’s dam burst in Situ Gintung in Tangerang, Banten.