A charity based in Teddington has been working on helping victims of the Indonesian tsunami for the last three months.

Tearfund helps communities overcome the worst effects of poverty and disasters. Emergency Aid Manager for Asia, Sanjeev Bhanja, has been in Indonesia since a terrible tsunami devastated the country in September 2018.

As of January 2019, there were a reported 37 fatalities, 16 people missing, 14,059 injured and 33,719 displaced as a result of the tsunami. At least 2,752 houses, 92 hotels and 510 boats have also been damaged.

The Teddington charity has partnered with Yakum Emergency Unit and is responding in Lampung, on the southern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia.

Its workers have distributed hygiene kits for 1,000 people, food and non-food items for 2,500 people and helped 700 people get access to health services.

Mr Bhanja said: "Tearfund works in over 50 countries, provides life-saving emergency aid in humanitarian emergencies. The destruction has been widespread in the Sunda Straits, and we are working with partners on the ground, government to help some of those most affected.

"I have experienced deprivation from close quarters in my village in India and this profession gave me a chance to work alongside vulnerable communities and charitable organizations and government to bring in change. A Christian charity like Tearfund does it compassionately with professionalism which motivates me further."

"We know that the the environmental changes we have seen in the last 60 years are without precedent in the previous 10,000 years.

"Worldwide, more than a billion people live in water basins where human water use exceeds sustainable limits, and millions more are subject to increasingly erratic rainfall as climate change gathers pace.

"We are also aware that shortages in key resources – such as water or food – are often exacerbated by disparities in purchasing power and political power.

"Unless we change course, we will undo all that we at Tearfund, our supporters, our partners and, above all, poor people across the world have worked so hard to achieve."