‘WE WISHED ONLY TO SAVE OUR LIVES’
Grandma recounts moment when quake struck
“OUR lives changed in an instant! The house where 10 of us in a family used to live was sucked into the earth,” said earthquake victim Elami Mohamad, 50.
The earthquake and tsunami occurred on Friday in Palu had rendered Elami, along with hundreds of other villagers in Palupi in Central Sulawesi homeless.
The disaster had forced Elami and family to take shelter in a lorry after failing in their search for a safe place.
She said the house where she had lived for years suddenly shook violently before the structure sank into the soil.
“We were about to perform Maghrib prayers when the 7.5magnitude earthquake occurred. We ran helter-skelter and did not have the time to even grab any of our valuable items.
“My three grandchildren and I, who were at home at the time, wished only to save our lives,” she said at Masjid Nurul Iman here.
Exhausted and dishevelled, Elami and her family members managed to squeeze into the red lorry with rationed food supply to survive.
“We have given up and decided to move out of Palu. We are heading to Makassar to seek shelter and food.
“We will return to Palu to only rebuild our lives when safety and basic amenities are restored,” said Elami, who was holding her 2-year-old grandchild, Rakikah Budi.
Another victim, Budiyanto Tandra, 40, said many residents from Palu, Sigi and Donggala fled the disaster site to nearby towns like Mamuju, or even Makassar, due to rumours of a stronger quake.
The man, who fled with his family members, said it took three days for their passengerladen lorry to reach Makassar.
“We have other family members there (Makassar) to help us. Alhamdulillah... my children and wife are safe, but some of our relatives in Palu died during the earthquake,” he said
THE death toll in Indonesia’s twin quake-tsunami disaster passed 1,400 yesterday, with time running out to rescue urvivors and the United Nations warning of “vast” unmet needs.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the number of dead had risen to 1,407 across four areas around the ravaged seaside city of Palu, and 519 bodies had already been buried.
Authorities set a tentative deadline tomorrow to find anyone still trapped under rubble, at which point — a week after this devastating double disaster — the chances of finding survivors will dwindle to almost zero.
Government rescue workers are focusing on half a dozen key sites around the city — the Hotel Roa-Roa where up to 60 people are still believed buried, a shopping mall, a restaurant and the Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.
At least 150 people are unaccounted for beneath the rubble.
According to the UN’s humanitarian office, almost 200,000 people need urgent help, among them tens of thousands of children, with an estimated 66,000 homes destroyed or damaged by the 7.5-magnitude quake and the tsunami it spawned.
Despite the Indonesian government urging foreign rescue teams to “stand down” because the crisis was in hand, residents in hard-hit, remote villages like Wani in Donggala province say little help has arrived and hope is fading.
“Twelve people in this area haven’t yet been found,” said Mohammad Thahir Talib.
“In the area to the south, because there hasn’t been an evacuation, we don’t know if there are bodies. It’s possible there are more,” the 39-year-old said.
In Geneva, the United Nations expressed frustration at the slow pace of the response.
“There are still large areas of what might be the worst-affected areas that haven’t been properly reached, but the teams are pushing, they are doing what they can,” Jens Laerke, from the UN’s humanitarian office, said on Tuesday.
The World Health Organisation has estimated that across Donggala, some 310,000 people have been affected by the disaster.
Survivors are battling thirst and hunger, with food and clean water in short supply, and local hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of injured.
Officials said while the government was inviting offers of help, there was still no “mechanism for this to be implemented”.
Landing slots at Palu airport are snapped up by the Indonesian military, although it was expected to be open to commercial flights today.
Palu’s port, a key transit point for aid, has been damaged.
Signs of desperation are growing, with police officers forced to fire warning shots and teargas on Tuesday to ward off people ransacking shops.
Six of the Indonesian Social Affairs Ministry’s trucks laden with supplies were reportedly looted en route to Palu.
In the main route north out of the city, youths blocked the road and asked for “donations” to clear the way.
President Joko Widodo, who faces reelection next year, insisted the military and the police were in full control.
“There is no such thing as looting,” he said on a visit to Palu.
As survivors pick through the shattered remains of their neighbourhoods, the death toll continues to rise.
The Indonesia-based Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance said more body bags were “urgently” needed as fears grow that decomposing corpses could provide a breeding ground for deadly diseases.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by a lack of heavy machinery, severed transport links and the scale of the damage.
In yet another reminder of Indonesia’s vulnerability to natural disasters, the Soputan Volcano in Sulawesi erupted yesterday, spewing volcanic ash up to 4,000m above the crater.
The state disaster agency warned people to stay at least 4km away, but said there was no need to evacuate for the time being.
International aid offers have picked up since Jakarta’s belated request for help, with the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund announcing on Tuesday that it was releasing US$15 million (RM60 million) in aid.
With power returning to parts of Palu on Tuesday and phone networks back up and running, there were some signs of things getting back to normal.
But for most, daily life has changed beyond all recognition.
Palu residents crowded around daisy-chained power strips at the few buildings with electricity, or queued for water, cash or petrol being brought in via armed police convoy.
Sanitation is also a growing problem.
“People everywhere want to go to the toilet but there’s no toilet. So we do it along the road at night,” said 50-year-old Armawati Yarmin.