Quake, tsunami survivors beg for evacuation
Stricken areas of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island were in chaos as the authorities struggled to get aid and shelter to survivors of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed buildings, inundated towns and enabled 1200 convicts to escape from prison.
Emergency workers said that the official count of 844 dead, almost all of them from the town of Palu, was likely to rise into the thousands as rescuers reached towns and villages cut off by damaged roads. Volunteers have begun burying victims in a mass grave.
Dozens of people are believed to be trapped under rubble in Palu, and cries and screams have been heard from beneath the ruins of a shopping centre and several hotels. The rescue effort has been impeded by a lack of heavy equipment for moving broken masonry and of supplies to feed those made homeless by the disaster.
Thousands of would-be refugees gathered at the town’s airport, pleading to be allowed to leave. However, the airport is handling only military flights bringing aid supplies.
Television images of Palu showed cracked roads, ships tossed on to land, at least one broken bridge, and residential districts reduced to mangled heaps of wood and corrugated iron. The town of 300,000 people has no power and few supplies of food and fresh water. ‘‘We have not eaten for three days!’’ one woman shouted, as military planes left without cargo or passengers. ‘‘We just want to be safe!’’
The government said that it would send ships to evacuate survivors.