Indonesia battles quake aftermath
Call for urgent aid after 102 are killed and 750 injured
MEUREUDU, INDONESIA // Medical teams in Aceh yesterday struggled to treat scores of people injured in a 6.5-magnitude earthquake a day after more than 100 people were killed in the worst disaster to hit the province since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The quake toppled hundreds of buildings and left thousands of people homeless.
Humanitarian organisations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province as the local disaster agency called for urgent food supplies and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage.
Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue workers concentrated their search on the hard- hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district, which is near the epicentre of the quake, as aftershocks rattled survivors.
National disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams were using devices that detect mobile phone signals within a 100-metre radius to help guide their efforts as they scoured the rubble.
The disaster agency said more than 750 people were injured. “We have to move faster to search and rescue possible survivors,” said Iskander Ali, a Pidie Jaya official.
Those killed included very young children and the elderly. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but said it was “God’s will”.
He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit. He and his wife managed to push their way out through the debris. Another man said he found his 9-year-old daughter alive be- neath a broken wall at his neighbour’s house. Thousands of people are homeless, afraid to return to their houses, or terrified of the aftershocks rattling the region.
President Joko Widodo asked all Indonesians to pray for their countrymen in the disaster-stricken province.
“Aceh is not alone,” he posted on his official Twitter account. Mr Nugroho said more than 11,000 people had been displaced and are staying at shelters and mosques or with relatives. About 10,500 homes were dam- aged and dozens of mosques and shop houses collapsed. Medical supplies and other essentials are lacking, officials said, with the region’s ill- equipped hospitals overwhelmed.
Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the memory of a December 26, 2004, earthquake that struck off Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 100,000 people in Aceh.