http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/10/200910175437577820.html
Friday, October 02, 2009
00:28 Mecca time, 21:28 GMT
Race to aid Sumatra quake survivors
Rescue and relief teams have been ordered to 'flood' Padang
with aid [AFP]
Indonesia is appealing for international aid in the wake of a series of
powerful earthquakes that officials say have killed at least 770 people, with
thousands more feared trapped under the rubble.
A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Sumatra on Thursday morning, according
to the US Geological Survey, just hours after a larger, 7.6 magnitude undersea
earthquake had rocked the island.
The first earthquake, which struck bout 50km from the coastal city of
Padang, flattened hundreds of buildings there, including hospitals, schools and
hotels.
Search and rescue teams were at work in heavy rain in Padang when the
second earthquake struck, causing widespread panic and badly damaging houses in
Jambi, another Sumatran town.
Indonesia's health ministry has said it fears thousands of people may
have died.
Rescue operations
Rick Cameron, the director of Island Aid, a disaster relief organisation
in Indonesia, said he had been taken by surprise by the second tremor.
Send your pictures
Send us your videos, pictures and comments
He told Al Jazeera: "We all jumped up, ran to a grassy area outside the
house. As we went down the stairs it intensified. Some of my friends fell over,
it was so strong.
"It was extremely disorienting and shakes every perspective of what you
think the world is."
It was unclear how many injuries the second earthquake had caused, but
Raphael Abreu, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey, told Al Jazeera
that it had been "definitely capable of creating, by itself, significant damage
to structures and property".
Step Vaessen, Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from Padang, said: "So
far, the worst incident I've seen is 160 people buried at one location.
"It's sporadic damage, but the damage is serious. High-rise buildings,
many of which have collapsed totally or partially - so lots of people trapped
... but it is still hard to say how many have died.
"I haven't seen many rescue workers active at all. I don't think there's
enough equipment at the moment in Padang to conduct these operations."
By 1300 GMT on Thursday, an official with the disaster ministry put the
toll at 770, with 290 people seriously injured and 2,090 slightly injured.
Padang 'overwhelmed'
Fauzi Bahar, Padang's mayor, appealed for help on Indonesian radio saying
the city was "overwhelmed".
In video
Quake wrecks Sumatra town
Padang warning ignored
"We really need help. We call on people to come to Padang to evacuate
bodies and help the injured," he said.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's president, instructed officials to
"flood" Padang with aid and medical relief, while his government announced $10m
in emergency aid.
He has been to Padang to oversee the relief effort and "gave a little
message, asking people to pray for a miracle to help the city", said Al
Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa.
Vaessen reported that medical teams and military aircraft had been
arriving with field hospitals, tents, medicine and food rations as officials
ramped up the rescue and relief operation.
Massive damage
At daybreak on Thursday, many Padang residents used their bare hands to
dig through the rubble searching for survivors.
Survivors were seen being pulled out and hospitals struggled to treat the
many injured.
Officials in Padang said about 500 houses had caved in and witnesses said
many buildings had collapsed after the first earthquake.
Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for Indonesia's disaster management agency,
said the effects "could be as big as the Yogyakarta quake", referring to a 2006
disaster that killed or injured more than 5,000 people and damaged or destroyed
150,000 homes.
The tremor was felt in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, 940km away, and
sent frightened office workers streaming out of buildings in Singapore as well
as Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Dozens of aftershocks followed.
'Ring of Fire'
Padang, the capital of Indonesia's West Sumatra province, sits on one of
the world's most active fault lines along the so-called Ring of Fire, the same
one that cracked off Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra, in 2004 to trigger
the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Shopping malls, hospitals and hotels in Padang were among the
structures toppled [Reuters]
That disaster killed more than 220,000 people in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri
Lanka and India among other countries.
Padang was badly hit by an 8.4 magnitude quake in September 2007, when
dozens of people died and several large buildings collapsed.
Scientists had been warning of a major earthquake in the area for a long
time, but the Indonesian government has said it did not have funds for
disaster-preparation measures, our correspondent said.
Geologists warn the low-lying city and surrounding area could be
vulnerable to more seismic activity.
"There are three big volcanoes in west Sumatra - Merapi, Talang and
Tandikat," Surono, the head of the Geological Disaster Mitigation and
Volcanology Centre in Indonesia, said.
"We fear that this quake might cause volcanic eruptions there."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
