Quake toll over 1500

Grim search for victims continues as relief efforts gain momentum

FRENCH rescuers have been unable to find the possible sign of life they detected a day earlier under hotel rubble, a week after the destructive earthquake and tsunami struck Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing more than 1550 people.

The five-member International Emergency Firefighters team said late on Thursday its sensor “detected the presence of a victim” under thick concrete in the wreckage of the Mercure Hotel in Palu city.

The device can identify breathing and heartbeats but gas leaks and other factors can result in false positives.

The team stopped digging overnight but after an hour of searching yesterday morning, team member Philip Besson said they could not find the signal again.

“We are perplexed and frustrated mostly. We strongly believed in it yesterday. Now we have nothing at all … we tried everything and have no re- sponse,” he said.

Local rescuers were continuing to dig at the collapsed hotel. The French rescuers said on their Facebook page that 40 people including six workers are missing from the hotel.

The death toll from 7.5 magnitude earthquake that spawned a tsunami on September 28 has risen to 1558, with scores more believed buried in deep mud and under debris of collapsed buildings and homes.

The national disaster agency said the body of a South Korean man was among eight dead pulled on Thursday from the wreckage of another hotel in Palu, the Roa Roa, which collapsed sideways in a heap of cement and steel.

Local television said the man, the only foreigner known to have perished in the disaster, was a paraglider taking part in an event in the area. Thousands have been injured and more than 70,000 evacu- ated to shelters and makeshift tents that have sprouted across Palu, the provincial capital of Sulawesi island that is home to most of the victims, and its surrounding areas.

After days of initial chaos and looting by desperate survivors, some stability has returned to Palu with some shops reopened and electricity restored in some areas.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said five ships carrying more than 90,000 tonnes of supplies arrived in Palu port on Thursday and two more vessels yesterday.

He said the Palu airport would also resume operations for passenger planes soon.

Military transport planes from Australia, India, Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere have landed with relief goods.

An RAAF Hercules carrying clothes, bedding, tools, tarpaulins and food arrived at Balikpapan on Thursday.