Indonesian doctors overwhelmed by earthquake victims

Members of a search and rescue team carry out search operations at Mitra Manakarra hospital following a magnitude 6.2 earthquake on January 15 in Mamuju, January 18, 2021. Photo by ADEK BERRY / AFP

MAMUJU, Indonesia – Doctors battled exhaustion and the risk of Covid-19 as they raced Monday to treat dozens of people injured by a devastating earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

At least 81 people were killed and thousands made homeless by the powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck early Friday, reducing buildings to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in the coastal city of Mamuju.

Masked doctors treated patients with broken limbs and other injuries at a makeshift medical center outside the only one of the city’s hospitals that survived the earthquake relatively intact.

“Patients keep coming in,” Nurwardi, operations manager at Mamuju General Hospital in West Sulawesi, told AFP.

“This is the only hospital that operates in the city. Many need surgery, but we have limited resources and medications. “

The outdoor sorting center was desperately understaffed, with those available working frantically despite the risk of contracting coronavirus.

The hospital was struggling to open more surgery rooms and erect additional tents outside to treat the injured, said Nurwardi, who, like many Indonesians, has only one name.

But fears that another earthquake could topple the building added to the challenges.

“Many patients do not want to be treated inside the hospital because they are worried about another earthquake,” Nurwardi said.

“Well, it’s not just them, the doctors are … afraid to be inside the building too.”

It was not yet clear how many people, living or dead, could still be under mountains of rubble, as rescuers scrambled to find survivors more than three days after the disaster.

‘Still trapped’

Most of the 81 dead were found in Mamuju, but some bodies were also recovered south of the city of 110,000 in West Sulawesi province.

Friday’s tremor sparked panic among residents of the island, which was hit by a 2018 earthquake and tsunami disaster that killed thousands.

At least 18 people had emerged from the rubble alive, including a couple of young sisters, according to official data.

Police began using sniffer dogs to help search a badly damaged hospital, as the body bags were full of recovered bodies.

“There are probably some people trapped under the rubble,” search and rescue agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said on Monday.

Meanwhile, around 19,000 people made homeless by the earthquake took refuge in dozens of makeshift shelters, many little more than tarp-covered tents filled with entire families.

They said they were running out of food, blankets and other aid as emergency supplies were quickly dispatched to the worst affected region.

Many survivors were unable to return to their destroyed homes, or were too scared to return, fearing a tsunami triggered by aftershocks common after strong earthquakes.

Fearing a coronavirus outbreak in the crowded camps, authorities were trying to separate the high-risk and low-risk groups.

Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of nearly 270 million people, has been hit by a series of natural disasters this week, including deadly landslides, floods and a pair of volcanic eruptions.

The country experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position in the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.

On December 26, 2004, a major 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that killed 220,000 people across the region, including 170,000 in Indonesia, among the worst disasters in history.

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