Ham radio sup­ports dis­as­ter response

A severe trop­i­cal storm in the Philip­pines and earth­quakes in Indone­sia have seen radio ama­teurs pro­vid­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er relief and recov­ery assis­tance. Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (PARA) Pres­i­dent, Dr Joey Pan­gani­ban DU1BP reports that a trop­i­cal storm named ‘Ondoy’ hit the Philip­pines five days ago cre­at­ing a trag­ic calami­ty with hams swing­ing into action to help.
Joey DU1BP said, “We have mobi­lized our ama­teur radio clubs for the relief oper­a­tions. The fre­quen­cies of 7.045MHz have been used for gen­er­al announce­ments while 2‑metres FM is for our com­mu­ni­ty oper­a­tions.” The dis­as­ter has affect­ed more than two mil­lion peo­ple and the death toll is head­ed for around 300. Joey DU1BP said, “All ama­teur and civic radio clubs are now on oper­a­tion in Metro Mani­la under the guid­ance of the Nation­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion and PARA.”
He said the PARA Sec­re­tari­at has been des­ig­nat­ed to receive dona­tions and solic­it­ing dona­tions both in kind and cash for the vic­tims. Joe DU1BP said, “What the evac­uees need is food that are ready to eat (those with­out much prepa­ra­tion) such as canned goods, noo­dles, rice, bread, cof­fee, milk, sug­ar, salt and water.
“They also need med­ical atten­tion and med­ica­tions need­ed for cough, colds, fever, diar­rhea and vit­a­mins. These items will be repacked and giv­en direct to the recip­i­ents, using com­mu­ni­ty offi­cials as con­tact points.”
Mean­time a pow­er­ful earth­quake rocked west­ern Indone­sia on Wednes­day, trap­ping thou­sands under col­lapsed build­ings and trig­ger­ing landslides.
At least 75 peo­ple were killed on Suma­tra island after the 7.6 on the Ritch­er Scale earth­quake strike.
In a brief mes­sage just hours after that dis­as­ter from the Organ­isasi Amatir Radio Indone­sia (ORARI), received by IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man, Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, it has been con­firmed that hams are involved there too.
Wis­nu Wid­ja­ja W1SNU/YB0AZ reports “We are active on the field now to sup­port the emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in West & South Sumat­era, Indone­sia. Now, we are using 2‑meters and 40-meter band.”
More infor­ma­tion can be expect­ed in com­ing days. How­ev­er no reports so far of ama­teur radio emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Pacif­ic as a tsuna­mi hit Samoa leav­ing trail of death and destruction.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.