Search on for survivors as quake toll climbs to 131 in Indonesia
DISASTER-HIT: A humanitarian crisis loomed for thousands left homeless
KARANGPANGSOR: The death toll from last weekend’s powerful earthquake on Indonesia’s Lombok island rose to 131 on Wednesday as rescuers found more people crushed under collapsed buildings, though some still held out hope of finding survivors.
“We don’t know for sure how many people are alive under the rubble,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) told reporters in Jakarta.
“There are reports... that there are people buried alive, it is a critical time for immediate evacuation,” he added, without giving details.
BNPB had previously put the number of dead at 105, including two on the western neighbouring island of Bali, which also felt the 6.9 magnitude quake. Sutopo said the figure would rise still further.
Lombok had already been hit by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake on July 29 that killed 17 people and briefly stranded several hundred trekkers on the slopes of a volcano.
A woman was pulled alive on Tuesday from under a grocery store that fell apart in the rural north of the tropical holiday island, near the epicentre of Sunday’s quake.
Rescuers dug through the rubble of a mosque on Wednesday, hoping to reach the aunt of a sprinter who became a national hero last month at the under-20 world championships in Finland.
Salama, 52, was at a prayer class in the Karangpangsor village mosque
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when the quake struck. She is an aunt by marriage of Lalu Muhammad Zohri, who just over a year ago could barely afford running shoes and was hardly known outside his village.
The 18-year-old became a household name almost overnight in July, when he won the 100 metres gold at the World Junior Championships in Tampere, Finland. Now he carries the hopes of Indonesia at the Asian Games that the Southeast Asian nation is preparing to host in the next few weeks.
He lives two doors away from his aunt’s home.
Rescuers used a mechanical digger to clear a jumble of metal rods and concrete beside the still-intact green dome of the mosque, but there were no signs that the woman was alive and relatives appeared to have lost hope.
“Hopefully, now, with the arrival of heavy equipment, we can get her remains back,” said Husni, another family member.
As hopes of finding more survivors faded, a humanitarian crisis loomed for thousands left homeless and in desperate need of clean water, food, medicine and shelter.
Aid workers are finding some hamlets hard to reach because bridges and roads were torn up by the disaster