130 DEAD IN LOMBOK
Authorities appeal for food, water and medical help for 156,000 displaced people
TAustralian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull HE death toll from a powerful earthquake on Lombok island in Indonesia rose to more than 130 yesterday, as authorities appealed for food, water and medical help for some 156,000 people forced from their homes.
Many frightened, displaced villagers were staying under tents or tarpaulins dotted along roads or in parched padi fields, and makeshift medical facilities had been set up to treat the injured.
Evacuees in some encampments said they were running out of food, while others were suffering psychological trauma after the 6.9-magnitude quake, which struck just one week after another tremor surged through the island and killed 17.
“We need long-term aid, even though we have received help from various (regional) governments,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
About 1,480 people were severely injured in the disaster, with tens of thousands of homes damaged, and authorities said the toll of 131 was likely to rise.
Workers with heavy machinery were searching the rubble of homes, schools and mosques, with hope of finding survivors fading.
“The corpses are starting to smell and we believe some people buried are alive. That’s why it’s a critical time,” Sutopo said.
Local authorities, international relief groups and the central government had begun organising aid, but shattered roads slowed efforts to reach survivors in Lombok’s mountainous north and east, which were the worst-hit.
Governor Muhammad Zainul Majdi of West Nusa Tenggara, where Lombok is, said there was a dire need for medical staff, food and medicine in worst-hit places.
Hundreds of bloodied and bandaged victims had been treated outside damaged hospitals in the island’s main city of Mataram and other badly affected areas.
“We have limited human resources. Some paramedics have to be at the shelters, some need to be mobile,” Majdi said.
“The scale of this quake is massive for us here in West Nusa Tenggara. This is our first experience.”
Some evacuees were grappling with the traumatic scenes of death and destruction.
“I saw my neighbour get stuck in the rubble and die. He asked me for help, but I couldn’t help him. We just ran to help ourselves,” said Johriah tearfully.
The Indonesian Red Cross said it had set up 10 mobile clinics in the north of the island.
A field hospital had also been established near an evacuation centre catering to more than 500 people in the village of Tanjung.
Kurniawan Eko Wibowo, a doctor at the field hospital, said most patients had broken bones and head injuries.
“We lack the infrastructure to perform operations because (they) need to be performed in a sterile place.”
Across much of the island, a popular tourist destination, once-bustling villages had turned into virtual ghost towns.
“In some villages we visited, the destruction was almost 100 per cent. All houses collapsed, roads are cracked and bridges were broken,” said Arifin Muhammad Hadi, a spokesman for the Indonesian Red Cross.
Many farmers were reluctant to move far from their damaged homes and leave precious livestock behind, he said.
The military said three Hercules transporter planes packed with food, medication, blankets, tents and water tanks had arrived in Lombok.
The earthquake had struck as evening prayers were being said across the island and there were fears that one collapsed mosque in north Lombok had been filled with worshippers.
Rescuers have found three bodies and also managed to pull one man alive from the twisted wreckage of the mosque, reduced to a pile of concrete and metal bars, with its towering green dome folded in on itself.