End of the road for quake victims

Indonesia intensifies search for signs of life on final day of rescue operations.

PALU: Rescue workers scoured the rubble of devastated communities on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on the last day of the search for victims of a 7.5 magnitude quake and tsunami that killed more than 2,000 people two weeks ago.

If any reminders were needed of Indonesia’s treacherous tectonics, a magnitude 6 quake struck off Indonesia’s Java and Bali islands early yesterday, killing three people in Java, damaging buildings and sparking panic.

The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are being held this week on Bali and attended by more than 19,000 delegates and other guests, including ministers, central bank heads and some country leaders.

On the west coast of Sulawesi, hundreds of kilometres northeast of Bali, the official death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that struck the seaside city of Palu on Sept 28 stood at 2,045.

Some 10,000 rescuers toiled for a final day yesterday as relatives of the missing clung to their last hopes that the bodies of their loved ones could be found and given a proper burial.

“I don’t have any tears left, all I want is to find them,” said Ahmad, 43, a farmer who was waiting near a pile of debris that used to be home in Palu’s Balaroa neighbourhood.

His wife and two daughters are missing in the ruins.

Balaroa and other Palu neighbourhoods were devastated by liquefaction, which happens when a quake shakes soft, damp soil, turning it into a viscous, roiling liquid.

Ahmad’s third daughter was badly injured and has been taken to the city of Makassar for treatment.

“She’s all I have left. Everything I own, everyone else, is gone,” he said.

No one knows how many people have yet to be found in Balaroa and other neighbourhoods but it could be as many as 5,000, the national disaster mitigation agency says.

Rescue teams are working with residents to try to identify where victims could be. However, it is mostly guesswork because of how far the ground moved during liquefaction.

The government called off the search for bodies from yesterday, citing concern about the spread of disease, and is beginning to focus efforts on the next phase – rebuilding.