A strong shallow earthquake rocked the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia just after midnight on Friday, tearing down houses and buildings, causing landslides. At least 42 people were killed.
More than 600 people were injured during the 6.2 magnitude earthquake, which caused people to flee their homes in darkness. The authorities were still collecting information on the total scale of casualties and damage in the affected areas.
Yusuf Wahil / AP
There were reports of many people trapped in the rubble of destroyed houses and buildings.
In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl trapped in the wreckage of a house screamed for help and said she heard the sound of other family members also arrested. “Please help me, it hurts,” said the girl to the rescuers, who replied that they desperately wanted to help her.
Rescuers said an excavator was needed to save the girl and others trapped in destroyed buildings. Other images showed a bridge cut and houses damaged and destroyed.
The earthquake damaged part of a hospital and the patients were transferred to an emergency tent outside. Rescuers struggled to extract seven patients and staff who were trapped under tons of rubble. After several hours, an excavator came to help and rescuers finally recovered four survivors and three bodies.
Another video showed a father crying, asking for help to save his children buried under the destroyed house. “They are trapped inside, please help,” he shouted.
Another video showed officials inspecting a house that had been completely destroyed.
Thousands of displaced people have been evacuated to temporary shelters.
The earthquake occurred 35 kilometers south of the Mamuju district in western Sulawesi province, at a depth of 11 kilometers, the US Geological Survey said.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said the death toll had risen to 34, while rescue workers in Mamuju recovered 26 bodies trapped in the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings.
The agency said in a statement that eight people were killed and 637 others were injured in the nearby Majene district of Mamuju.
According to the report, at least 300 homes and a health post have been damaged and about 15,000 people are being housed in temporary shelters in the district. Power and phones have fallen in many areas.
West Sulawesi administration secretary Muhammad Idris told TVOne that the governor’s building was among those that collapsed in Mamuju, the provincial capital, and many people remain in prison.
Rescuer Saidar Rahmanjaya said the lack of heavy equipment was making it difficult to clear rubble from collapsed houses and buildings. He said his team is working to save 20 people trapped in eight buildings, including the governor’s office, a hospital and hotels.
“We are running out of time to rescue them,” said Rahmanjaya.
Relatives cried when they saw rescuers remove the body of a loved one from a damaged house in devastated Mamuju. He was put in an orange bag and taken to the funeral.
“Oh my God, why did we have to go through this?” shouted Rina, who uses a name. “I can’t save my dear sister … forgive me, sister, forgive us, God!”
President Joko Widodo said in a televised speech that he ordered his social minister and the heads of the army, police and disaster agency to carry out emergency response measures and search and rescue operations as quickly as possible.
“I, on behalf of the Government and all the people of Indonesia, would like to express my deepest condolences to the families of the victims,” said Widodo.
The head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, Bagus Puruhito, said rescue workers from the cities of Palu, Makassar, Balikpapan and Jakarta were being sent to help in Mamuju and Majene.
Two ships were leaving Makassar and Balikpapan for the affected areas, carrying rescue teams and search and rescue equipment, while a Hercules plane with supplies was en route to Jakarta.
Puruhito is already leading more than 4,100 rescue teams in a separate massive search operation for victims of the crash of a Sriwijaya Air jet in the Java Sea last Saturday.
Among those killed in Majene were three people killed when their homes were destroyed by the earthquake while they slept, said Sirajuddin, head of the district’s disaster agency.
Sirajuddin, who goes by a name, said that although the earthquake in the interior did not have the potential to cause a tsunami, people along the coastal areas rushed to higher ground for fear that it would occur.
Mudslides occurred at three locations and blocked a main road that connects Mamuju to Majene district, said Raditya Jati, a spokesman for the disaster agency.
On Thursday, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the same region, damaging several homes but causing no apparent casualties.
Indonesia’s meteorological, climatological and geophysical agency, known for its Indonesian acronym BMKG, warned of the dangers of aftershocks and the possibility of a tsunami. Her president asked people in coastal areas to move to higher ground as a precaution.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 260 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location in the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In 2018, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Palu, on the island of Sulawesi, generated a tsunami and caused the collapse of the soil in a phenomenon called liquefaction. More than 4,000 people died, many of the victims buried when entire neighborhoods were swallowed by the falling ground.
AN powerful earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.