The death toll from the earth­quake in Aceh Indone­sia on Wednes­day has reached 100, with near­ly 300 injured, and hams pro­vid­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions to help with the response.

The earth­quake struck at 5am local time on Wednes­day and the toll could have been much worse with the col­lapse of a school mosques, which were not occu­pied at the time.

IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee’s Dani Hiday­at YB2TJV reports that it took two hours for the Ham Radio Group from Orari Aceh Region to reach the earth­quake dam­age zone.

An ORARI Aceh province team (wear­ing ORARI uni­form) lead by Abdul­lah Ali YB6AA (Pres­i­dent), and Ismul Huda YB6AG (Sec­re­tary) and oth­er friends sup­port­ed the emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the field at Pidie Jaya.

They soon received news that Zainal Abidin YC6FZ was injured when his house col­lapsed but his fam­i­ly were safe. Ismul YB6AG took Zainal YC6FZ to the Ban­da Aceh Hos­pi­tal for treatment.

Dani YB2TJV reports that 7.110 MHz is being used for emer­gency traf­fic, and the acti­va­tion of hams was noti­fied on the What­sapp Group of Nation­al CORE that han­dles resources.

There were flat­tened hous­es and build­ings, infra­struc­ture dam­age and large cracks were in roads, in the worst-affect­ed dis­tricts of Pidie Jaya and Pidie.

As search and res­cue teams con­tin­ue to check the rub­ble of at least 125 homes, 105 shops and 14 mosques. Many hun­dreds shel­tered in a make-shift refugee camp.

- Jim Lin­ton VK3PC Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.