Quake victims overwhelm medics
Mamuju – Medics battled exhaustion and the risk of Covid-19 as they raced yesterday to treat scores of people injured by a devastating earthquake on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
At least 81 people were killed and thousands left homeless by the powerful 6.2-magnitude quake that struck early on Friday, reducing buildings to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in the seaside city of Mamuju.
Masked doctors treated patients with broken limbs and other injuries at a makeshift medical centre set up outside the only one of the city’s hospitals that survived the quake relatively intact.
“The patients keep coming,” Nurwardi, manager of operations at Mamuju’s West Sulawesi General Hospital, told AFP earlier.
“This is the only hospital operating in the city. Many need surgery but we have limited resources and medicine.”
The open-air triage centre was desperately short of staff and those on hand worked frantically despite the risk of contracting coronavirus. The hospital was scrambling to open up more rooms for surgery and erect additional tents to treat the injured, said Nurwardi who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.
But fears that another quake could bring down the building were adding to the challenges. “Many patients do not want to be treated inside the hospital because they’re worried about another quake. Well, it’s not only them, the medics are... scared too,” Nurwardi said.
It was still unclear how many people could still be under mountains of debris, as rescuers rushed to find survivors.