Indonesia tsunami toll crosses 800
Casualties expected to soar as authorities try to reach those trapped under collapsed buildings
The death toll from a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi climbed to more than 800, with casualties expected to reach into the thousands as authorities try to reach those trapped under collapsed buildings.
Local media reports quoted Vice-President Muhammad Jusuf Kalla as saying that he expected the toll to grow as he drew comparisons between the latest quake and a tsunami that hit Indonesia’s Aceh province in 2004.
About 832 people are confirmed dead and foreigners from Asia and Europe are among those reported missing, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman at National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said in a televised press conference yesterday.
The central Sulawesi government has declared a state of emergency for 14 days to improve rescue efforts, Nugroho said. At least 209 aftershocks hit the island as of yesterday afternoon.
Many of the dead were found at beaches near the city of Palu, population 300,000, where a festival was being held. Many people on the beach were killed as they weren’t aware of the threat of a tsunami because there is no siren to warn them, Nugroho wrote on his Twitter account.
Citizens from France, South Korea and Malaysia are still missing, while foreigners who have been or will be evacuated from the quake-hit areas include those from China, Germany, Singapore, Belgium, Vietnam and Thailand, Nugroho said.
Indonesia’s 17,000 islands are prone to earthquakes because the country straddles the Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines and volcanoes that causes frequent seismic upheavals. At least 160,000 people were killed on Sumatra Island as a result of a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004. More than 100 people were killed after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck a popular tourist island of Lombok in August.
Vice-President Muhammad Jusuf Kalla draws comparisons between the latest quake and a tsunami that hit Indonesia’s Aceh province in 2004, killing 160,000 people.
The death toll in Indonesia’s quake-tsunami disaster nearly doubled to more than 800 yesterday, as illequipped rescuers struggled to reach scores of trapped victims, health officials resorted to mass burials and desperate residents looted shops for food and water.
“The casualties will keep increasing,” said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, whose agency announced 832 deaths.
“Today we will start the mass burial of victims, to avoid the spread of disease.”
Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said the final death toll in the north of Sulawesi island could be in the “thousands” since many regions have still not been reached.
“It feels very tense,” said 35-year-old mother Risa Kusuma, comforting her feverish baby boy at an evacuation centre in the gutted coastal city of Palu. “Every minute an ambulance brings in bodies. Clean water is scarce. The mini-markets are looted everywhere.”
Indonesia’s Metro TV yesterday broadcast footage from a coastal community in Donggala, close to the epicentre of the quake. Some waterfront homes appeared crushed but a resident said most people fled to higher ground after the quake struck. “When it shook really hard, we all ran up into the hills,” a man identified as Iswan told the TV.
Limited communication
Indonesian President Joko Widodo arrived in the region yesterday afternoon.
In Palu yesterday aid was trickling in, the Indonesian military had been deployed and search-and-rescue workers were doggedly combing the rubble for survivors — looking for dozens feared trapped under one hotel alone. “Communication is limited, heavy machinery is limited ... it’s not enough for the numbers of buildings that collapsed,” Nugroho said.
The 7.5-magnitude quake struck on Friday, sparking a tsunami that ripped apart the city’s coastline. Save The Children programme director Tom Howells said access was a “huge issue” hampering relief efforts.
“Aid agencies and local authorities are struggling to reach several communities around Donggala, where we are expecting there to be major damage and potential large-scale loss of life,” Howells said.
Dozens of corpses lay in an open courtyard at the back of a Palu hospital, baking under a fierce tropical sun, with only one building separating it from an open triage site on the opposite side. “I have one child — he’s missing,” Baharuddin, a 52-year-old Palu resident, told AFP as he stood on floor tiles smeared with blood.
“I last spoke to him before he went to school in the morning.”
The disaster agency said it believed about 71 foreigners were in Palu when the quake struck, with most safe.
Three French nationals and a South Korean, who may have been staying at a flattened hotel, had not yet been accounted for, it added. Amid the levelled
trees, overturned cars, concertinaed homes and flotsam tossed up to 50 metres inland, survivors and rescuers struggled to come to grips with the scale of the disaster.
On Saturday evening residents fashioned makeshift bamboo shelters or slept out on dusty playing fields, fearing powerful aftershocks would
topple damaged homes and bring yet more carnage.
C-130 military transport aircraft with relief supplies managed to land at the main airport in Palu, which reopened to humanitarian flights and limited commercial flights, but only to pilots able to land by sight alone.
Satellite imagery provided by regional relief teams showed severe damage at some of the area’s major ports, with large ships tossed on land, quays and bridges trashed and shipping containers thrown around.
Hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of injured, with many people being treated in the open air. There were widespread power blackouts.