Indonesia hunts for survivors as quake death toll hits 60
Published on: Monday, January 18, 2021
By: AFP
Rescuers are disinfected as they remove the body of a landslide victim that has so far killed at least 32 people and another eight are still missing in Sumedang, West Java province.
Mamuju: A powerful earthquake on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island has killed at least 60 people, authorities said Sunday, with thousands left homeless as rescuers raced to find anyone still alive under mountains of rubble more than two days after the disaster.But monsoon rains were challenging the search effort, as hundreds of injured overwhelmed the only local hospital still operating in the aftermath of the 6.2-magnitude quake, which struck early Friday.
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The tremor triggered panic among residents of the island, which was hit by a 2018 quake-tsunami disaster that killed thousands.
Rescuers have been filling body bags with corpses hauled from beneath crumpled buildings in Mamuju, a city of 110,000 people in West Sulawesi province, where a hospital was flattened and a shopping mall lay in ruins.
Others were killed south of the city.
The death toll could still climb.
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Excavators, cranes and other heavy equipment were deployed across the devastated seaside city where buildings were reduced to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete, including the regional governor’s office.
It was unclear how many people – dead or alive – could be still under the debris.
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“We heard a roaring sound and the house started shaking,” said survivor Jumardi, 50, from a shelter where he and six family members took refuge.
“All I had in my mind was that I would die...Everyone was panicking.”
Authorities have not given a figure for how many survivors have been rescued.
A pair of young sisters plucked from under the mass of concrete and other debris were treated in hospital.
Meanwhile, corpses were recovered from under a collapsed hospital, while five members of a family of eight were found dead in the crumpled remains of their home.
Masked doctors treated patients with broken limbs and other injuries at a makeshift medical centre set up outside the only one of the city’s hospitals that survived the quake relatively intact.
Among them was Wawan, who was rescued by neighbours after the violent tremor buried him.
The 27-year-old initially didn’t want to go into a hospital to treat a broken foot.
“I was traumatised,” said the man, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
“But people convinced me that the doctors were treating patients outside the building, so I agreed to go.”
Thousands left homeless by the quake took to makeshift shelters—many little more than tarpaulin-covered tents filled with whole families.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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