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Hopes fade for Indonesia quake survivors, death toll may reach 3,000
Source: Agencies |
October 4, 2009, Sunday
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Online Edition
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RESCUE teams combing the rubble in the shattered Indonesian city of Padang said today there was little hope of finding more survivors of a massive earthquake that authorities say may have killed 3,000 people.
As relief workers pushed deeper into earthquake-hit Sumatra they found entire villages obliterated by landslides and homeless survivors desperate for food, water and shelter.
"I am the only one left," said Zulfahmi, 39, who was in the village of Kapalo Koto with 36 family members when Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake triggered a landslide, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Padang.
"My child, my wife, my mother-in-law, they are all gone. They are under the earth now."
Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadillah Supari, told Reuters by telephone that the government estimated the death toll could reach 3,000, adding that disease was becoming a concern, especially in Padang city, where a pervading stench of decomposing bodies hangs over the ruined buildings.
"We are trying to recover people from the debris, dead or alive. We are trying to help survivors to stay alive. We are now focusing on minimising post-quake deaths," she said.
In Padang, a university city of 900,000, rescuers were picking through collapsed buildings to look for perhaps thousands of people still buried under the rubble.
"We are doing final checks before we can declare the rescue phase is over. We think it's the end of the rescue phase," said British rescue worker Peter Old, of Rapid UK.
"There's very little chance of finding people alive. It's the beginning of a ramping down in rescue work."
Hopes were also fading of finding survivors in the ruins of the Dutch-colonial era Ambacang Hotel, a landmark in a town famous across Indonesia for its spicy cuisine and dramatic curved roofs.
A person believed to be trapped in the building, where an insurance company was holding a seminar, sent a phone text message on Friday to a relative saying that eight people were still alive in the ruins.
Rescuers including a Swiss team and sniffer dogs from Japan were cutting through layers of concrete, but by late yesterday afternoon had managed to retrieve only one more body.
SCALE OF THE DISASTER
In remoter areas, the scale of the disaster was still becoming clear, with at least five villages swallowed by landslides.
"In the villages in Pariaman, we estimate about 600 people died," said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre. Pariaman, closer to the epicentre, is one of the worst-affected.
"In one of the villages, there's a 20-metre-high minaret, it was completely buried, there's nothing left, so I presume the whole village is buried by a 30-metre deep landslide."
In another rural area, a resident said it was too late for aid.
"Don't bother trying to bring aid up there," said Afiwardi, who pointed past a landslide that cut off a road. "Everyone is dead."
Some villagers were using simple wooden hoes in what appeared to be futile attempts to reach bodies under the earth.
The mayor of the district of Padang Pariaman, Muslim Kasim, said heavy digging machinery was starting to reach some areas, but that survivors desperately needed tents and blankets.
"We are devastated. Eighty percent of houses have caved in, roads are split and cracked," he said by telephone, adding that one of the landslides had hit a wedding party.
Days after the earthquake, many areas had seen no aid.
"We have not received a thing. We need food, clothes, blankets, milk," said Siti Armaini outside her collapsed home in Pariaman. "It seems like the government has forgotten about us."
Asked about the rescue efforts in Pariaman, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said bluntly it was now about retrieving bodies.
"We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials," he said in footage shown on Metro TV.
Later he said that Indonesia most needed foreign help in the form of funds and reconstruction now, rather than rescuers.
As relief workers pushed deeper into earthquake-hit Sumatra they found entire villages obliterated by landslides and homeless survivors desperate for food, water and shelter.
"I am the only one left," said Zulfahmi, 39, who was in the village of Kapalo Koto with 36 family members when Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake triggered a landslide, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Padang.
"My child, my wife, my mother-in-law, they are all gone. They are under the earth now."
Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadillah Supari, told Reuters by telephone that the government estimated the death toll could reach 3,000, adding that disease was becoming a concern, especially in Padang city, where a pervading stench of decomposing bodies hangs over the ruined buildings.
"We are trying to recover people from the debris, dead or alive. We are trying to help survivors to stay alive. We are now focusing on minimising post-quake deaths," she said.
In Padang, a university city of 900,000, rescuers were picking through collapsed buildings to look for perhaps thousands of people still buried under the rubble.
"We are doing final checks before we can declare the rescue phase is over. We think it's the end of the rescue phase," said British rescue worker Peter Old, of Rapid UK.
"There's very little chance of finding people alive. It's the beginning of a ramping down in rescue work."
Hopes were also fading of finding survivors in the ruins of the Dutch-colonial era Ambacang Hotel, a landmark in a town famous across Indonesia for its spicy cuisine and dramatic curved roofs.
A person believed to be trapped in the building, where an insurance company was holding a seminar, sent a phone text message on Friday to a relative saying that eight people were still alive in the ruins.
Rescuers including a Swiss team and sniffer dogs from Japan were cutting through layers of concrete, but by late yesterday afternoon had managed to retrieve only one more body.
SCALE OF THE DISASTER
In remoter areas, the scale of the disaster was still becoming clear, with at least five villages swallowed by landslides.
"In the villages in Pariaman, we estimate about 600 people died," said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre. Pariaman, closer to the epicentre, is one of the worst-affected.
"In one of the villages, there's a 20-metre-high minaret, it was completely buried, there's nothing left, so I presume the whole village is buried by a 30-metre deep landslide."
In another rural area, a resident said it was too late for aid.
"Don't bother trying to bring aid up there," said Afiwardi, who pointed past a landslide that cut off a road. "Everyone is dead."
Some villagers were using simple wooden hoes in what appeared to be futile attempts to reach bodies under the earth.
The mayor of the district of Padang Pariaman, Muslim Kasim, said heavy digging machinery was starting to reach some areas, but that survivors desperately needed tents and blankets.
"We are devastated. Eighty percent of houses have caved in, roads are split and cracked," he said by telephone, adding that one of the landslides had hit a wedding party.
Days after the earthquake, many areas had seen no aid.
"We have not received a thing. We need food, clothes, blankets, milk," said Siti Armaini outside her collapsed home in Pariaman. "It seems like the government has forgotten about us."
Asked about the rescue efforts in Pariaman, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said bluntly it was now about retrieving bodies.
"We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials," he said in footage shown on Metro TV.
Later he said that Indonesia most needed foreign help in the form of funds and reconstruction now, rather than rescuers.
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