Rescuers in race against time as tsunami death toll rises to 1,200
Frantic efforts were under way last night to save those trapped in the rubble. Rescuers focused on a collapsed residential complex where up to 200 people were believed to be trapped after the country’s warning system failed.
Muhammad Syaugi, head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, said: “I can hear the voices of the survivors still screaming for help.”
One survivor told how he lost his wife when the wave came: “I was carried about 50 yards. I couldn’t hold anything. The water was spinning me around.
“This morning I went back to the beach. I found my motorbike and my wife’s wallet.”
Concerns were also growing for thousands of people who were attending a beach festival in the tourist town of Palu at the time the waves struck.
Mr Syaugi said: “What we now desperately need is heavy machinery to clear the rubble.
“I have my staff on the ground, but it’s impossible to rely on their strength alone to clear this.”
For many the rescue efforts came too late, with one resident claiming that corpses were “scattered on the beach and floating on the sea”.
Looters were also seen risking their lives entering an unstable shopping mall in a bid to grab whatever they could find. An overturned vehicle in front of the ruins of a mosque on Palu after the quake and tsunami