Worldwide Family Activity Report - Special Issue on Sakhalin Island Earthquake
FAR019 - GP
November 1995 by The Family, Zurich, Switzerland

The Family
Making a Difference!

"Soothe Their Heartaches, Ease Their Pain!"
Sakhalin Island Earthquake Relief!
         Imagine yourself in a remote Russian village. It's 1:00 A.M. Sunday morning, and apart from the last young revelers at two graduation parties and a few others, everyone is home and asleep. Suddenly and without warning, nearly everyone in the town is buried under mountains of concrete. That almost unthinkable scenario took place on May 28 of this year, when an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale devastated Neftegorsk, a tiny oil town on Sakhalin Island, located off the eastern coast of Russia in the Sea of Okhotsk.
         When the first tremor hit, all 17 of the five-story apartment buildings which housed most of Neftegorsk's population were lifted off the ground. A second tremor a few seconds later flattened the apartment blocks like houses of cards. Nearly 3,000 of the town's 3,200 people -- including 450 children -- were trapped under the debris of the 30-year-old prefabricated cement structures. Initial rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that the town's only crane operators were among the missing. Outside help was also slow to arrive. Neftegorsk is 100 km (65 miles) from Okha, the nearest larger town, and is accessible only by dirt road or helicopter. The final death toll exceeded 2,000.
         Family volunteers working in Moscow spent the next several days gathering relief supplies. They already had in storage two tons of food and medical supplies--the last of over 200 tons of humanitarian aid that other members of The Family in Russia secured from abroad last year for distribution to the needy in Siberia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. They also had a large shipment of clothing which members of The Family in Sweden had recently collected and shipped to Moscow for The Family's humanitarian aid projects. Next they contacted hotels and businesses who donated blankets, food, clothing and toiletries. A friend secured passage for six Family volunteers and their relief supplies aboard a government cargo plane. At the airport they were given another one-and-a-half tons of medical aid to pass on to hospitals treating the earthquake victims.
         Members of The Family's relief team report:

A town engulfed in misery and despair
         The first leg of our journey was a 12-hour flight which took us over land and sea and across eight time zones before landing in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin Island. We delivered the medical supplies to hospital administrators and loaded the rest of our relief supplies onto a smaller cargo plane, then flew to the regional center of Okha. The next day we loaded a truck with relief goods, stored what we couldn't carry on the first trip, and traveled overland to Neftegorsk.
         Even though we had read and heard news accounts of the tragedy, we weren't prepared for what we saw and the stories we heard. Everyone lost loved ones. Some lost their entire families -- as many as 40 relatives. Survivors were still in a state of shock.
         Living conditions were harsh and unsanitary. Hundreds of survivors were camped out in tents and makeshift wooden shelters around the ruins. (Every day there were more tremors, so it wasn't safe to sleep in the few concrete structures left standing.) Most had only the clothes on their backs. Already there had been cases of cholera and hepatitis. The town won't be rebuilt; townsfolk who hadn't already been evacuated were staying only to bury their loved ones and obtain the necessary paperwork to move elsewhere. Their discouragement and misery was beyond description.
         One lady recounted: "I was able to run outside, but then found myself in terrible confusion and almost total darkness. The only light came from fires that had started in the demolished buildings. Out of the darkness came the screams of hundreds of people who were trapped under mountains of debris. Those of us who managed to free ourselves tried to free others, but the concrete slabs were too heavy to lift. Help didn't reach us until the next morning -- too late for many of our loved ones! The sights and sounds of that night will be with us for the rest of our lives!"

Survivors experience God's Love and find comfort in His Word!
         As we went about distributing the aid, we also shared a smile and a few words of encouragement, or took a moment to put a comforting arm around those we had come to help. That first day, many could not return a word. They just stood there and cried.
         During the eight days that followed, these same people came to us time and again, not just for material aid, but also to pour out their hearts to us and to find answers to their many questions. "Why did God allow this tragedy to happen to us?" "Is there really a spirit world?" "Have our loved ones who died gone on to a better Place?" We answered their questions from the Bible and our posters about Heaven and the afterlife. One woman commented about our literature, "This is the most important help you could give us. This is exactly what we need!"
         A 19-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl were the only survivors from one family. "I had stopped believing in God," the boy told us, "but after praying with you to receive Jesus as my Savior, I'm starting to believe again." A day later he had read all the literature we gave him and said, "When I am troubled with memories of the earthquake, I read your literature and feel better. Before you came, I was bitter towards God for taking my family, but since reading your literature I understand that there is nothing to be bitter about. There is a better world, and I know they are happy There!"

Survivors tell of miraculous escapes!
         Several survivors told us of miraculous escapes from their collapsing apartments. "I know there is a God," said one man, "because He answered my prayer and kept me alive by a miracle! After the first tremor I was stuck head down between two cement slabs. I felt at that instant that I would surely die. If the slabs shifted, I would be crushed, and if I had remained in that position for very long the mounting blood pressure in my brain would kill me. I prayed to God to save me, and with the second tremor I was thrown out of the building to safety."
         Another man recounted this experience: "I was asleep in my fifth-floor apartment when, only a minute before the earthquake, my 10-month-old daughter started crying. I got up to see what she needed, and as I leaned over her bed, the whole building started shaking violently. I grabbed her and jumped out of the window. Because the building was falling at the same moment, the ground was then only a few feet below. We both survived virtually unharmed!"
         In addition to the survivors, we met and counseled many of the victims' relatives who either did not live in Neftegorsk, or who were not in town when the earthquake struck. After the earthquake, they returned to find most of their relatives dead and their homes destroyed. Among those relatives was a group of about a dozen young university students who had been away at school.
         At first, it seemed especially difficult for the students to understand how God could have had a plan behind what happened, but they could not deny that in the midst of the destruction, miracles had taken place. One day after the earthquake, one student received a telegram from officials informing him that the rest of his family was believed to be dead. He prayed desperately for Jesus to save them somehow, and his mother and two younger brothers, ages 14 and three, were found alive under the rubble two days later.

Little things meant the most!
         Before we left from Moscow, a friend had given us a large cash donation to spend on the survivors' needs, as we saw fit. At the disaster site we found that people's most urgent material needs were mostly little things. The weather was very cold and rainy much of the time that we were there, yet some people didn't have any socks, or their shoes had big holes in them. Others hadn't brushed their teeth, or shaved, or washed their hair since the earthquake. All their toiletry articles were buried under tons of rubble.
         When some of us returned to Okha to collect the rest of the aid we had left there, we were able to buy small personal items for the survivors: toothbrushes and toothpaste, combs, soap, shampoo, shaving sets, shoes and socks, underwear, T-shirts, bras, laundry powder, bowls and cups, etc. The people were very touched that we were concerned enough to get them what they needed and had asked for.
         We had heard reports in Moscow of large aid shipments being sent from Korea and Japan. We found out later, however, that most of that aid never arrived; corrupt bureaucrats working with underworld figures had intercepted many of those shipments and the goods were being sold in other cities on the island. This news made us very thankful that we had decided to accompany our relief supplies and put them directly into the hands of the survivors ourselves.
         Many people thanked us for delivering the aid personally. A teen-age boy said, "We learned a lot from you! Other people sent aid to us, but you were the only ones who came and took time to talk with us. You treated us like real people, not just faceless statistics or a bunch of beggars."
         Another man said as he broke into tears, "I just needed someone who would listen to me. That meant more to me than anything else."
         Another said, "Being around you has given me hope." And that hope was contagious.
         One boy explained it this way: "Before you came, I was really sad, but each time I saw you, you were smiling. I didn't know how to react at first, so I smiled back. Then I started smiling at others. Now that my friends and I can smile again, our situation doesn't seem so hopeless!"
         They also respected us for camping out with them in their little wooden shacks, not expecting or accepting special treatment because we were volunteers from the outside. Each time we stepped out of our "house," we were invariably met by someone who wanted to tell us their problems or talk with us about God. Thank God, He had the answers to their heartcries!

Our little goes a long way, with God's help!
         In the face of catastrophes such as the Sakhalin Island earthquake, many people question, "What could I do to help relieve the suffering? How much difference could one person make?" As we traveled from Moscow to Neftegorsk, we had asked ourselves similar questions. "How can six people comfort hundreds? What lasting difference can we make in their lives?" On our long journey home, as we reviewed in our mind's eyes the faces of survivors and relatives who had become so dear to us, the answer came in a paraphrase of an old hymn:
         Little is much if God is in it,
         Soothe their heartaches, ease their pain.
         You're not too small to make a difference,
         Just give them love in Jesus' name!

For more information:

         Visit The Family at our Internet Web site: http://www.thefamily.org/family
         E-mail: family@thefamily.org


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family