Following Palu earthquake and tsunami Deutsche Post DHL Group sends Disaster Response Team to Indonesia

• Deutsche Post
  DHL Group volunteers provide logistics support for managing incoming relief
  goods at Balikpapan International Airport and Palu Airport

BONN,
GERMANY -�Media OutReach – October
5, 2018: Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL) Group, the world’s leading mail and logistics services
provider, has deployed its
Disaster Response Team (DRT) to Indonesia in the wake of the devastating
earthquake and tsunami on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The DRT is there
to support the humanitarian response to the island.
Almost 1,000 villages have
been affected by the disaster. The death toll has risen to more than 1,400 and
is expected to climb higher still. Moreover, hundreds of people have been
injured and over 60,000 have lost their homes. Urgently needed goods
such as technical equipment, water, tents, fuel and food are currently being
flown to Balikpapan. DPDHL
Group’s DRT provides logistics support in close collaboration with local staff
and humanitarian organizations at local airports. They are helping to
manage incoming aid for further distribution to those in need.

On October
4, 2018 the DRT received the official mandate from the government of Indonesia
through BNPB (Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management) and ASEAN
Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA
Centre) to support with humanitarian logistics in Palu, ground zero of the
tsunami on the island of Sulawesi, and in Balikpapan, a seaport city on the
east coast of the island of Borneo. Two DRT teams are being set up to
support the request, one at Balikpapan where its international airport will
function as the staging area for incoming international assistance into Palu,
and the other at a distribution centre close to the airport in Palu to handle
and store relief goods. More DHL volunteers are on standby and ready for
deployment once the government has coordinated the flow of
international aid into Indonesia.

Carl
Schelfhaut, GoHelp Manager, Asia Pacific, Deutsche Post DHL Group leads both
teams. He explains, “The situation in Palu on the island of Sulawesi in
Indonesia is still dire with power outages, water shortages and increasing
reported incidents of looting. Due to a collapse of the tower at Mutiara SIS
Al-Jufrie Airport, only very small propeller aircrafts and military airplanes
can land. That is why Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Airport in Balikpapan is
being set up as the main humanitarian relief hub where sourcing and sorting of
incoming relief goods will take place. With the airport in Palu partially ready
to receive goods, the Indonesia National Armed Forces, along with selected
foreign forces from countries like Australia, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand
and Singapore are ferrying C-130 and C-17 type aircraft from Balikpapan to
Palu. These aircraft will serve the dual purpose of transporting aid to Palu
and then returning with evacuees. The DRT will be on-site in both locations to
assist with ground handling.”

Through its
DRT teams, who work on the ground together with local staff as well as national and
international humanitarian organizations, offloading goods from aircraft pallets, loading them onto standard
wooden pallets, and then storing them in warehouses until they can be forwarded
on, DPDHL Group provides life-saving logistics support. “Managing relief goods logistics
is crucial in the aftermath of natural disasters. As a logistics company we
have the skills that can save lives — we help ensure that relief goods are
processed quickly so that they reach the people affected by the devastating
earthquake and tsunami as quickly as possible,” elaborates Carl Schelfhaut.

About the Disaster Response Team

The DRTs are
part of DPDHL Group’s GoHelp disaster management program, which it has operated
in partnership with the United Nations (UN) since 2005. Through this partnership,
the Group provides the UN and national disaster management agencies with pro
bono access to its core logistics expertise, and the logistics skills of more
than 500 specially-trained employee volunteers worldwide who can deploy within
72 hours after a natural disaster.

Since the
partnership was launched, the DRTs have completed about 40 deployments for
different natural disasters in over 20 countries — most recently the team helped
the victims of Fuego volcano eruption in Guatemala in June this year.

In addition to the DRT
deployments, the Group’s Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) initiative —
also part of the GoHelp program — trains airport management in risk regions to
be better prepared should disaster strike.

You can find the press release for
download as well as further information on dpdhl.com/pressreleases

 

On the Internet: dpdhl.de/press

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