A double dose of natural disasters led Catholic agencies working in Indonesia to mount multiple efforts to provide emergency services to victims. The disasters—a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake on Oct. 25, which triggered a tsunami that swamped coastal villages in the remote Mentawai Islands, and the eruption of a volcano on Java beginning on Oct. 26—claimed more than 400 lives and displaced thousands. Authorities reported at least 400 people remained missing as of Oct. 29, four days after 10-foot waves washed away homes and other structures up to 2,000 feet inland. “Entire villages were swept away,” said Silvano Zulian, a Xaverian priest who lives in the Mentawai Islands. Local priests and women religious were among the first to reach the affected communities.
Death Toll Mounts In Double Disasters
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
An interview on economics and Catholic social teaching with Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist and a professor at Columbia University.
Lesson one: I had to buy more stamps.
Celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea should give new energy to evangelization efforts, a new document from the International Theological Commission says.
In this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell walk us through the pontiff’s recovery, including “slight improvements” in his speech.