Death toll climbs to 1,407
Indonesia police get tough on looters
PALU: About 1,407 people are now known to have died in the quaketsunami that smashed into Sulawesi, Indonesia said, as police pledged to clamp down on looting by survivors taking advantage of the chaos.
There were reports on Tuesday of officers firing warning shots and tear gas to ward off people ransacking shops in Palu, a coastal city ravaged by a 7.5magnitude quake and the tsunami it spawned.
Almost 200,000 people were in need of urgent help, the United Nations said, among them tens of thousands of children.
Survivors were battling thirst and hunger, with food and clean water in short supply, and local hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of injured.
Police said on Tuesday that they had previously tolerated desperate survivors taking food and water from closed shops, but had now arrested dozens of people for stealing computers and cash.
“On the first and second day, clearly no shops were open. People were hungry and in dire need. That’s not a problem,” said deputy national police chief Ari Dono Sukmanto.
“But after day two, the food supply started to come in, it only needed to be distributed. We are now reenforcing the law.”
Despite official assurances, desperation was evident on the streets of Palu, where survivors clambered through wreckage hunting for anything salvageable.
Others crowded around daisychained power strips at the few buildings that still had electricity, or queued for water, cash or petrol brought in via armed police convoy.
Queues to get a few litres of petrol lasted over 24 hours in some places. Sanitation is also a problem. “People everywhere want to go to the toilet, but there’s no toilet, so we do it along the road at night,” said 50yearold Armawati Yarmin.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by a lack of heavy machinery, severed transport links, the scale of the damage and the Indonesian government’s initial reluctance to accept foreign help.
Along the road to Donggala, a large town close to the epicentre of the quake, there were more scenes of destruction. The town itself appeared relatively unscathed, but in the worst affected areas it was hard to find a single vertical surface.
Donggala resident Farid, 48, pleaded for help: “Don’t centre all the aid on Palu. We in Donggala have nothing.”
As if to remind the world of the tectonic fragility of Indonesia, a series of quakes hit the island of Sumba on Tuesday, albeit hundreds of kilometres from Palu.
The official death toll from the tragedy in central Sulawesi stood at 1,407, according to the government.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it expected the toll to rise further as rescuers made contact with previously cut off areas.
The Indonesian military is leading the rescue effort, but following a reluctant acceptance of help by President Joko Widodo, international NGOs also have teams on the ground in Palu.
Among the dead were dozens of students whose bodies were pulled out from their landslideswamped church in Sulawesi.
The dead – many yet uncounted,
their bodies still trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings – are also a source of concern for authorities.
The Indonesiabased Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance said more body bags were “urgently” needed as fears grew that the decomposing corpses could provide a breeding ground for deadly diseases.
There were glimmers of hope among the countless tragedies.
Two people were plucked from the rubble of the RoaRoa Hotel, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said, and more could still be alive.
And for civil servant Azwan, there was joy when he was reunited with his wife, Dewi after 48 hours of fearing the worst after she was swept away by the tsunami.
“I was so emotional – thank God I could see her again,” he said.
But for some, the search yields only sorrow as they trudge around openair morgues, where the dead lay in the sun, waiting to be claimed and named.