Eyewitness: Simple houses save lives

The island was devastated by the quake

Richard Galpin was one of the first journalists to fly to Enggano island, close to the epicentre of Sunday's massive earthquake

I'm standing now in front of many, many buildings which have been destroyed completely, just collapsed. There clearly has been a lot of damage throughout the island.

But the interesting fact is that there have been relatively few casualties. No-one at all has been killed, which is very surprising.

The number of injuries has also been quite small and most of those have been minor.

The key point is that people here are living in very basic housing; small single-storey houses made of light material.

Most people managed to get out in time and those who didn't were not too seriously injured.

If this had been anywhere else in the world, in a developed part of the world where there were high-rise concrete buildings, thousands of people would probably have been killed.

It really is very much due to the lack of development here. The basic housing has essentially saved people's lives.

Basic conditions

There are many problems, however. People need food and water - there does seem to be something of a problem with the water supply here. And they do need shelter too, very urgently.

Supplies are being brought in by helicopter

People have lost their homes and like on mainland Sumatra, they're living outside and in very basic conditions with just bits of plastic sheeting to protect them.

The Federation of the Red Cross are concerned about the possibility of disease.

This is a malaria infested area, and if people are sleeping outside they are going to be vulnerable to diseases.

So there is need for assistance, but not on the scale that had been previously feared.