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Damaged roads and bridges, power outages and a lack of heavy equipment on Saturday hampered rescuers after a strong earthquake left at least 49 people dead and hundreds injured on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Operations focused on about eight locations in the hardest hit city of Mamuju, where people were believed to be trapped after the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck early Friday, said Saidar Rahmanjaya, who heads the local agency. search and rescue.
Cargo planes carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies from Jakarta landed Friday night for distribution to temporary shelters. Thousands of people spent the night out in the open for fear of aftershocks and a possible tsunami.
National search and rescue agency operations director Bambang Suryo Aji said rescuers recovered three more bodies from the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings in Mamuju on Saturday night, bringing the death toll to 49. A total of 40 people died in Mamuju. while nine bodies were recovered in the neighboring district of Majene.
At least 415 houses in Majene were damaged and some 15,000 people were transferred to shelters, said spokesman for the national disaster mitigation agency Raditya Jati.
The bodies recovered by rescuers were sent to a police hospital for family members to identify, said West Sulawesi police spokesman Syamsu Ridwan. He said that more than 200 people were receiving treatment at the Bhayangkara Police Hospital and several more in Mamuju alone. Another 630 were injured in Majene.
Among those rescued was a girl who was trapped in the rubble of a house with her sister. The girl was seen in a video posted by the disaster agency on Friday asking for help. She was being treated in a hospital. He identified himself as Angel and said his sister, Catherine, who did not appear in the video, was next to him under the rubble and was still breathing. The fate of Catherine and other family members was unclear.
The earthquake caused landslides in three places and blocked a main road connecting Mamuju with Majene. Power and telephone lines were down in many areas.
Mamuju, the capital of the Western Sulawesi province with almost 75,000 inhabitants, was littered with rubble from collapsed buildings. An office building used by the governor was nearly destroyed in the earthquake and a shopping mall was reduced to a crumpled old town. A large bridge collapsed and patients with drippings stretched out on folding beds under canvas tents outside one of the damaged hospitals.
Two hospitals in the city were damaged and others were overwhelmed.
Many survivors said help had not yet reached them due to damaged roads and disrupted communications. A video from a television station showed the residents of Majene, some with machetes, forcibly stopping vehicles carrying aid. Two boats headed to the devastated areas from the nearby cities of Makassar and Balikpapan with rescuers and equipment, including bulldozers.
State-owned AirNav Indonesia, which oversees the aircraft’s 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 military and disaster officials to coordinate the response.
In a telegram sent by the Vatican on behalf of Pope Francis, the pontiff expressed “the most sincere solidarity with all those affected by this natural disaster.”
International humanitarian missions, including Water Mission, Save the Children and the International Federation of the Red Cross, said in statements that they have joined efforts to provide aid to people in need.
