Desperate hope at shattered hotel
People dig through rubble with bare hands in search of loved ones
PALU: With bare hands and a torch, Martinus Hamaele desperately dug through the rubble of Palu’s shattered Hotel Mercure in the hope of finding his missing daughter Meiren, nearly a week after a quake-tsunami disaster pounded the Indonesian seaside city.
It’s a race against time after authorities set a tentative deadline of today to find anyone still trapped under rubble, at which point the chances of finding anyone alive will dwindle to almost zero.
“We keep shouting ‘ Meiren, it’s me – your dad and your brother,” Hamaele said yesterday.
“But there is no response, just silence.”
Standing outside the devastated beachside hotel, the 55-year-old recounted clambering through twisted steel and rubble, pulling five survivors from the debris shortly after the massive rumble.
“I asked those who were still alive to make noises by hitting things, so we could detect their location,” he said.
“We made a small opening. Initially we thought it was impossible but I never gave up.”
One of the five rescued was a pregnant woman, he added.
But his desperate calls after his 20-year-old daughter, who was working at the hotel when Friday’s 7.5 magnitude quake and tsunami smashed Palu, have yet to be answered.
Yesterday morning, family mem- bers gathered outside the hotel, wandering amid the rubble or quietly watching as search teams readied special equipment and sniffer dogs to check for victims.
Most returned day after day and complained about what they described as a slow evacuation response by authorities.
“I’ve been here for three days but they just started yesterday,” said Hadija, 47, who was waiting for news of her younger brother Didi. “They are very slow.”
Members of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency and French NGO International Emergency Firefighters pulled one body from the hotel on Wednesday.
Sniffer dogs and specialist equipment were deployed on Thursday to try identify more victims.
“There is always hope,” said International Emergency Firefigh- ters president Philippe Besson.
Retno Budiharto, from Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, added: “There are at least three people in the building according to hotel management ... There is a small possibility (they’re alive).” —