http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/10/200910355313145360.html
Saturday, October 03, 2009
15:48 Mecca time, 12:48 GMT
Hopes fade for trapped Indonesians
Three villages in Pariaman were completely wiped out after a
hillside collapsed [EPA]
Rescuers are continuing to dig through the rubble of collapsed buildings
on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, several days after a deadly earthquake
struck the region, but officials say hopes of finding survivors alive are
rapidly diminishing.
Only a handful of survivors had been pulled from the rubble by Saturday,
three days since the 7.6 magnitude quake toppled tens of thousands of buildings
in the coastal town of Padang and surrounding villages.
Up to 4,000 people are believed to be trapped under the rubble following
Wednesday's earthquake, the United Nations estimates.
Villages wiped out
Jusuf Kalla Indonesia's vice-president said he did not expect many more
people to be pulled alive from the devastated landscape.
"Most people here are trapped and buried inside buildings. You cannot
hope for more survivors. I think most of them have died," Kalla, speaking
during a visit to Pariaman, north of Padang, told reporters.
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Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Tandikat in Pariaman, said that
three villages had been completely wiped out after a hillside collapsed during
the quake.
"What we can see here now is just a scene of absolute devastation - it is
covered with mud, dirt after landslides came tumbling down into the valley," he
said.
"There really isn't even any sign of debris here, just mud and trees."
Rescue workers were unable to reach the area, normally just a 90 minute
drive from Padang, for two days because the roads were cut by landslides and
debris.
"We have seen a very small number of military people here and they have
one digger, one piece of heavy equipment ... so it is going to be a long road
ahead," Hay said.
Estimates of how many people were killed in Pariaman vary, with one
tribal chief telling Al Jazeera that at least 300 had been killed.
Bob McKerrow, the head of the Indonesia delegation of the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, said aerial photos showed
the extent of the damage in the mountainous outlying regions.
He said hundreds of villages were in the disaster zone, and that the few
he had visited had all reported deaths and serious injuries.
"Typically in every village, there's an old woman with a broken back with
a gash on her arm and she's not moving. That's why we're sending in helicopters
with medical teams," he said.
Death and destruction
The official death toll for the region currently stands at 777, with
hundreds more injured.
More than 20,000 buildings have been destroyed and 2,400 people
hospitalised across seven districts, Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the
national disaster agency, said.
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Al Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa, reporting from Padang, said that foreign
aid teams were continuing to arrive at the town's airport and still believed
that some of the victims could be found alive.
"It is going to be very difficult for anyone to have survived beneath the
rubble, but experts say it is possible on the fourth day depending on the
injuries sustained, the strength of the person involved and whether they have
managed to get drops of water," she said.
"There are signs of life here and that is confirmed by the international
rescue teams with their sniffer dogs."
A number people were believed to be trapped under the rubble of the
ruined Dutch-colonial era Ambacang Hotel in the town.
"We think there are eight people alive in there. One sent an SMS to a
relative in a village, who got the text at 3pm [08:00 GMT] yesterday,"
Arkamelvi Karmani, an army officer involved in the rescue operation, said.
The message reportedly called for help and implored rescuers: "Be careful
that the excavator doesn't cause the building to collapse on us."
Rescuers were building a tunnel into the rubble to try to reach them.
Inadequate aid
Aid has arrived from 14 countries, the National Disaster Mitigation
Agency said. Rescue teams have come from several countries including Australia,
Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
Specialist rescue teams have arrived from
a number of countries [EPA]
But, Testos, an Indonesian Red Cross worker at an aid station in central
Padang, said that they only had around half of what would be needed to provide
for those affected by the disaster.
"We also need drinking water and clothes because many peoples clothes
were burnt in fires," he said.
"We also need medicines to stop infection."
The powerful undersea earthquake struck about 50km from Padang and caused
buildings to sway in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, 940km away.
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.
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