Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia has deployed two naval hospital ships to reinforce emergency medical services in flood-hit Aceh and North Sumatra, the country’s Navy chief said Wednesday, as the military expands sea and air support to speed up relief operations across the disaster zone.
Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Muhammad Ali said one hospital ship will remain on standby in Lhokseumawe after making an initial stop in Aceh Tamiang, while the second will operate from Sibolga.
The ships, he said, are positioned to reach communities where clinics and local hospitals are either overwhelmed by the surge in patients or unable to function because of flooding, power cuts or blocked access routes.
He said both vessels carry full medical teams, including emergency doctors, surgeons and paramedics, and are equipped with operating rooms, inpatient wards, diagnostic equipment and pharmacies.
Their deployment, backed by additional naval support units, is designed to bring rapid treatment directly to survivors still isolated or facing long delays in receiving care on land.
Ali said the Navy is also preparing a fuel-support vessel to stabilize diesel supplies for generators in areas where the power grid remains down.
Reliable generator fuel, he added, is critical for running mobile clinics, water-purification units, communication posts and temporary shelters.
“We may add another ship, the tanker KRI Bontang, to support fuel distribution because many regions urgently need it,” he said, noting that uninterrupted fuel flows are essential to keep emergency services functioning.
A total of seven naval vessels have been activated so far, most of them carrying large volumes of relief supplies—food, clean water, medicine, tents and sanitation kits—to coastal staging points where aid can be offloaded and forwarded inland by trucks, small craft or helicopters.
The Navy has also deployed several helicopters to reach residents in districts still cut off by damaged roads, collapsed bridges and continuing landslides. The aircraft have been dropping food packages, medical kits and communication equipment to isolated villages that remain unreachable by ground teams.
Ali said the intensified use of naval sea and air assets is aimed at accelerating evacuations, restoring access to hard-hit communities and ensuring a continuous flow of logistics to survivors facing prolonged flooding and worsening humanitarian conditions.
