Damaged roads and bridges, power blackouts and a lack of heavy equipment on Saturday hampered rescue workers after a massive earthquake left at least 46 dead and hundreds injured on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
Operations focused on about eight locations in the hardest-hit city of Mamuju, where people were still trapped after Friday’s 6.2 magnitude earthquake, said Saidar Rahmanjaya, who heads the local search and rescue agency.
AT LEAST 34 DEAD IN INDONESIA QUAKE
Cargo planes carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies from Jakarta landed on Friday for distribution to temporary shelters. Still, thousands of people spent the night outdoors fearing aftershocks and a possible tsunami.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokeswoman Raditya Jati said rescue workers had already recovered the bodies of 37 victims in Mamuju and nine in the neighboring district of Majene.
At least 415 houses in Majene have been damaged and about 15,000 people have been moved to shelters, said Jati.
The bodies rescued by rescue workers were sent to a police hospital for identification by relatives, said West Sulawesi police spokesman Syamsu Ridwan.
He said more than 200 people were receiving treatment at the police hospital in Bhayangkara and several others in Mamuju alone. Another 630 were injured in Majene.
Among those saved was a young woman who was trapped in the wreckage of a house with her sister.
The girl was seen in a video released by the disaster agency on Friday crying for help. She was being treated at a hospital.
She identified herself as Angel and said that her sister, Catherine, who did not appear in the video, was beside her under the rubble and still breathing.
An Indonesian soldier helps a woman carry her baby as they walk through an area affected by the earthquake caused by the earthquake near Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, Saturday, January 16, 2021. (AP Photo / Yusuf Wahil)
The fate of Catherine and other family members was unclear.
The earthquake caused landslides in three locations and blocked a main road that connects Mamuju to Majene. Power and telephone lines have fallen in many areas.
Mamuju, the capital of Western Sulawesi province with almost 75,000 inhabitants, was littered with the wreckage of destroyed buildings. An office building was almost destroyed by the earthquake and a shopping mall was reduced to a dented figure. A large bridge collapsed and dripping patients lay on folding beds under canvas tents outside one of the damaged hospitals.
Two city hospitals were damaged and others were overloaded.
Many survivors said aid had not yet arrived due to damaged roads and interrupted communications.
The video from a TV station showed Majene residents, some carrying machetes, forcibly stopping vehicles carrying aid. They climbed into a truck and threw boxes of instant noodles and other supplies at dozens of people struggling to catch them.
Residents inspect the ruins of a building damaged by an earthquake in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, Saturday, January 16, 2021. (AP Photo / Yusuf Wahil)
Two ships headed for the devastated areas of the neighboring towns of Makassar and Balikpapan with rescue teams and equipment, including excavators.
State-owned AirNav Indonesia, which oversees aircraft navigation, said the earthquake did not cause significant damage to the runway at Mamuju Airport or the control tower.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Friday that he had instructed his cabinet ministers and disaster and military officials to coordinate the response.
In a telegram sent by the Vatican on behalf of Pope Francis, the pontiff expressed “sincere solidarity with all those affected by this natural disaster”.
The pope was praying for “the resting of the dead, the healing of the wounded and the comfort of all who suffer”. Francis also encouraged those who continued the search and rescue, and he invoked “the divine blessings of strength and hope”.
International humanitarian missions, including the Water Mission, Save the Children and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in statements that they have joined efforts to provide aid to people in need.
Indonesia, where more than 260 million people live, is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location in the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and geological faults in the Pacific Basin.
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In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Palu, on the island of Sulawesi, triggered a tsunami and caused the collapse of the soil in a phenomenon called liquefaction. More than 4,000 people were killed, including many who were buried when entire neighborhoods were swallowed by the falling soil.
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake on the island of Sumatra in western Indonesia in December 2004 triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.