‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’

Indo quake & tsumani kill 800-plus

Rescuers in Indonesia tried on Sunday to reach victims stranded by a devastating earthquake and tsunami that wrecked coastal towns and killed more than 800 people.

“The death toll is believed to be still increasing,” said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

“Many bodies were still under the wreckage, while many have not been reached,” he said.

Workers were trudging toward several large coastal towns that were cut off by damaged roads and downed communications lines.

There was a call for heavy equipment to reach possible survivors buried in collapsed buildings, including an eightstory hotel in Palu where voices were heard crying from the rubble.

“We are trying our best,” said Muhammad Syaugi, the head of the national search and rescue team. “Time is so important here to save people. Heavy equipment is on the way.”

At least 832 people were confirmed killed by the quake and tsunami, which struck Friday evening, Indonesia’s disaster agency said, with nearly all of those from Palu — where workers have been told to dig a mass grave that can hold 1,300 bodies.

Corpses covered in blue and yellow tarps lined the streets of the town, and officials said they were digging a mass grave for at least 300 of the dead.

“Bodies are everywhere,” a local journalist told The Guardian. “Along the Palu coast, houses were swept away by the tsunami, includ- ing my house in Tondo, lost completely to the tsunami.”

A 25-year-old woman was found alive during the evening in the ruins of the Roa-Roa Hotel, according to the National Search and Rescue Agency.

Other rescuers worked to free a 15-year-old girl trapped under concrete in her house in Palu after it collapsed on her family during the magnitude-7.5 quake, which spawned the tsunami.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo toured Palu on Sunday and said that rescuers were having difficulty reaching victims because of a shortage of heavy equipment.

“There are many challenges,” Jokowi said. “We have to do many things soon, but conditions do not allow us to do so.”

Indonesia is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. DEVASTATION: A mosque lies in shambles Sunday as first responders rescue a woman.