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More bodies found as death toll from Indonesia quake nears 2000
PALU, Indonesia, Oct 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Nearly 2000 bodies have been
recovered from Palu since an earthquake and tsunami struck the Indonesian
city, an official said Monday, warning the number would rise with thousands
still missing.
The death toll from the twin disaster on Sulawesi island that erased whole
suburbs in Palu has reached 1,944, said local military spokesman M. Thohir.
“That number is expected to rise, because we have not received orders to
halt the search for bodies,” Thohir, who is also a member of the government’s
official Palu quake taskforce, told AFP on Monday.
Authorities have said as many as 5,000 are believed missing in two hard-hit
areas since the September 28 disaster — indicating far more may have
perished than the current toll.
Hopes of finding anyone alive have faded and the search for survivors amid
the wreckage has turned to gathering and accounting for the dead.
The disaster agency said the official search for the unaccounted would
continue until October 11 at which point they would be listed as missing,
presumed dead.
The government has said it will declare those communities flattened in Palu
as mass graves and leave them untouched.
Gopal, whose aunt and uncle are missing, picked through wreckage Monday
knowing just days were left to find his loved ones.
“Even if they (search teams) stop looking, we will still try to find them
ourselves,” the 40-year-old said in Balaroa, one of the hardest hit
neighbourhoods.
“When we can no longer do it ourselves, we leave it to Allah,” Gopal, who
like many Indonesians goes by one name, added.
Excavators and rescuers combed Balaroa on Monday, where a massive
government housing complex was all but swallowed up by the disaster.
Rescuers have struggled to extract decomposing bodies from the tangled mess
left behind.
Officials say as many as 5,000 people were feared buried at Balaroa and
Petobo, another decimated community.
Petobo, a cluster of villages, was subsumed when vibrations from the 7.5-
magnitude quake turned soil to quicksand — a process known as liquefaction.
Relief efforts have escalated to assist 200,000 people in desperate need.
Food and clean water remain in short supply, and many are dependent entirely
on handouts to survive.
Helicopters have been running supply drops to more isolated communities
outside Palu, where the full extent of the damage is still not entirely
clear.
The Red Cross said Monday it had treated more than 1,800 people at medical
clinics and administered first aid to a similar number in the immediate
disaster zone.
Indonesia sits along the world’s most tectonically active region, and its
260 million people are vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic
eruptions.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0927 hrs