Hunt for survivors after Java quake kills 252
Over 300 injured, 13,000 evacuated
Rescuers searched for survivors buried under rubble yesterday as relatives started to bury their loved ones after an earthquake on Indonesia’s main island of Java killed 252 people.
As body bags emerged from crumpled buildings in Indonesia’s most populous province, rescue efforts turned to any survivors still under debris in areas made hard to reach by the mass of obstacles thrown onto the roads by the quake.
The epicentre of the shallow 5.6-magnitude quake on Monday was near the town Cianjur in West Java where most of the victims were killed as buildings collapsed and landslides were triggered.
One of the dozens of rescuers, 34-year-old Dimas Reviansyah, said teams were using chainsaws and excavators to break through piles of felled trees and debris to reach areas where civilians were believed trapped.
“I haven’t slept at all since yesterday, but I must keep going because there are victims who have not been found,” he said.
Drone footage taken by AFP showed the extent of a quake-triggered landslide where a wall of brown earth is only punctuated by workers using heavy machinery to clear a road.
President Joko Widodo visited the area yesterday, offering compensation for victims and ordering disaster and rescue agencies to “mobilise their personnel” to prioritise the evacuation of victims.
“On behalf of myself, on behalf of the government, I would like to express my deepest condolences,” he said.
Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency, or BNPB, said at least 25 people were still buried under the rubble in Cianjur as darkness fell on Monday.
“There’s a possibility there are still more victims,” Rudy Saladin, a local military chief, told AFP.
The BNPB offered a lower death toll of 103 as of yesterday morning and said 31 people remain missing.
Some of the dead were students at an Islamic boarding school while others were killed in their homes when roofs and walls caved in on them.
“The room collapsed and my legs were buried under the rubble. It all happened so fast,” 14-year-old student Aprizal Mulyadi said.
The search operation yesterday was made more challenging because of severed road links and power outages in parts of the largely rural, mountainous region.
As of yesterday morning, 89% of power to Cianjur had been recovered by state-owned electricity company PLN, according to state news agency Antara.
More than 300 people had been injured and over 13,000 taken to evacuation centres.
Those who survived camped outside in near-total darkness surrounded by fallen debris, shattered glass and chunks of concrete.
Doctors treated patients outdoors at makeshift wards after the quake, which was felt as far away as the capital Jakarta.
The devastation caused by the quake was made worse by a wave of 62 smaller aftershocks — with magnitudes ranging from 1.8 to 4 — that relentlessly shook Cianjur, a town of about 175,000 people.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday joined Canadian and French leaders in offering their condolences.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.
A 6.2-magnitude quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people.