Hunt for buried survivors after Indonesia quake kills 162, After a powerful earthquake struck Java, the largest island in Indonesia, killing 162, injuring hundreds, and leaving many more people fearfully trapped in fallen houses, rescuers sought on Tuesday for survivors buried under debris. The majority of the casualties died when buildings collapsed and landslides were set off during the shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake that struck West Java on Monday, close to the town of Cianjur in Indonesia’s most populated state. Others were slain in their own homes as walls and roofs collapsed on them, while others of the fatalities were pupils at an Islamic boarding school.
Hunt for buried survivors after Indonesia quake kills 162
“The room collapsed and my legs were buried under the rubble. It all happened so fast,” 14-year-old student Aprizal Mulyadi told AFP. He said was pulled to safety by his friend, Zulfikar, who later died after getting trapped under rubble. “I was devastated to see him like that, but I could not help him because my legs and back were injured,” he said.
The search operation was made more challenging because of severed road links and power supply in parts of the largely rural, mountainous region. On Tuesday, dozens of rescuers used heavy machinery in Cugenang village to try and clear the road to Cianjur, which was cut off by a landslide. As the bodybags emerged from crumpled buildings, the focus turned to the missing and any survivors under the debris.
Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency, or BNPB, said at least 25 people were still buried under the rubble in Cianjur as darkness fell on Monday. Those who survived camped outside in near-total darkness surrounded by fallen debris, shattered glass and big chunks of concrete.
– ‘Nothing I could save’ –
The disaster mitigation agency said more than 2,000 houses were damaged and West Java governor Ridwan Kamil said more than 13,000 people were taken to evacuation centres. Doctors treated patients outdoors at makeshift treatment wards after the quake, which was felt as far away as the capital Jakarta. Grieving relatives waited for authorities to release bodies from morgues to bury their loved ones in accordance with their Islamic faith while others searched for their missing relatives in the chaos.
At a shelter in Ciherang village near Cianjur, evacuees sat on the cold morning ground on tarpaulins. Babies and children slept while their exhausted mothers kept watch. Nunung, a 37-year-old woman who like many Indonesians goes by one name, had pulled herself and her 12-year-old son out of the rubble of their collapsed home. “I screamed for help for nobody came to help us, I had to free ourselves by digging,” she told AFP from the shelter, her face covered in dry blood. “Nothing is left, there is nothing I could save but the clothes on our back.”
A series of 62 smaller aftershocks with magnitudes ranging from 1.8 to 4 that continued to tremble Cianjur, a town of about 175,000 people, compounded the devastation brought on by the earthquake. On Monday evening, the presidents of France and Canada sent their condolences, but Joko Widodo of Indonesia has not yet replied. Indonesia’s location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide, causes frequent seismic and volcanic activity. In January 2021, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Sulawesi killed over 100 people and left thousands homeless.
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