Time runs out for quake survivors in Indonesia
Wani, Indonesia, Oct. 3: The death toll in Indonesia’s twin quaketsunami disaster passed 1,400 on Wednesday, with time running out to rescue survivors and the UN warning of “vast” unmet needs.
Authorities have set a tentative deadline of Friday to find anyone still trapped under rubble, at which point — a week after the devastating double disaster on Sulawesi island — the chances of finding survivors will dwindle to almost zero.
Military spokesman M. Thohir said the number of confirmed dead has risen to 1,411, while the disaster agency said 519 bodies have already been buried.
Government rescue workers seeking survivors are focusing on half a dozen key sites around the seaside city of Palu — the Hotel Roa- Roa where up to 60 people are still believed buried, a shopping mall, a restaurant and Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.
At least 150 people are unaccounted for beneath the rubble, officials said.
According to the UN’s humanitarian office almost 200,000 people need urgent help, among them tens of thousands of children, with an estimated 66,000 homes destroyed or damaged by the quake and the tsunami it spawned.
Despite Indonesia urging foreign rescue teams to “stand down” because the crisis was in hand, residents in hard- hit, remote villages like Wani in Donggala province say little help has arrived and hope is fading. “In the area to the south, because there hasn’t been an evacuation we don’t know if there are bodies. It’s possible there are more,” the 39- year- old said. In Geneva, the UN expressed frustration at the slow pace of the response. “There are still large areas of what might be the worst- affected areas that haven't been properly reached, but the teams are pushing, they are doing what they can,” Jens Laerke, from the UN's humanitarian office, told reporters.