'All we want is to leave'
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Labia UMPAN is a religious leader from Ambachang Gadang, a village in the hills close to Pariaman that was partly swept away by a landslide. Twelve people died in the village, eight of them from the same family.
"All we want is to leave. We ask the government to move us to a safer place. We are too worried to stay here, with all these huge cracks on the road. Some families have already left because they were too traumatised. We want to live in a flat area; there would be risks of floods but at least no earthquake. For the time being, everyday at 5 pm we all go down to Padang Alai to spend the night there because we don't feel safe in the village. And then we come back here during the day. In Padang Alai, we sleep 60 in a tent. It's not easy to leave, I was born here and I spent all my life here, but the property is not important, what is important is life."
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| International Humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) mobile clinic provided medical aid in a village close to Pariaman, Indonesia. [©Juan-Carlos Tomasi/MSF] |
"I was not here when it happened, but my wife was. She was outside with one of our daughters when it started. She immediately ran inside the house to take out our other daughter, but when she came out an electric pole fell and hurt her on the leg. Eight neighbours were swept away by the landslide. I went searching for survivors. We searched during three days, but we didn't find anybody."
"It's the second time my house is destroyed. Before we had a nice house, but in 2007 it was destroyed by another earthquake. I received help from the government to build a temporary wood house while I was rebuilding the other one. But before I could finish rebuilding it this quake happened. I don't want to stay here; it's impossible. I want to go to a flat area."
"My wife, sometimes she still feels like there's an earthquake again. I don't sleep well – I have bad memories coming back, the earthquake coming back again."
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