Indonesia considers making devastated areas mass graves

PALU, Indonesia — Search teams pulled bodies from obliterated neighbourhoods in the disasterstricken Indonesian city of Palu on Saturday as more aid rolled in and the government said it was considering making devastated areas into mass graves.

Indonesia’s disaster agency said the death toll from the powerful earthquake and tsunami climbed to 1,649, with at least 265 people still missing, though it said that number could be higher. More nations sent aid and humanitarian workers fanned out in the countryside.

The dead were still being recovered more than a week after the double disaster.

Rudy Rahman said the bodies of his 18- and 16-year-old sons had been found. His youngest son remained missing. His wife wept inconsolably.

Balaroa was one of the areas hardest hit by the Sept. 28 magnitude 7.5 quake, which threw homes in the neighbourhood tens of metres and left cars upright or perched on eruptions of concrete and asphalt.

Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, who uses a single name, said the government is mulling the possibility of turning Balaroa and Petobo, another neighbourhood in Palu, into mass graves. Wiranto said homes there were sucked into the earth, burying possibly hundreds of victims.

He said it’s not safe for heavy equipment to operate there.