JAKARTA: Indonesia appealed for foreign emergency aid on Monday as the search for victims of the earthquakes and tsunami that struck Indonesia’s Sulawesi island was being hampered by a lack of equipment.
The death toll from Friday’s 7.4-earthquake and subsequent tsunami stood at 844, according to the National Disaster Management Agency.
But officials warned that it was likely to increase, with Vice President Jusuf Kalla saying casualties could be in the “thousands.”
A major aid group, Aksi Cepat Tanggap, said at least 1,203 bodies had been recovered.
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Nugroho cautioned that figure was not official and just an estimate.
At least 90 people were listed as missing while 48,000 are displaced, he said.
President Joko Widodo authorised the acceptance of “international help for urgent disaster response and relief,” said Thomas Lembong, chairman of the National Investment Coordinating Board.
The European Union said it had released an initial 1.5 million euros in emergency humanitarian assistance, while the United States said it stood “ready to assist in the relief effort.”
Nugroho Budi Wiryanto, operations chief for the National Disaster Search and Rescue Agency, said a lack of heavy equipment and fuel was “making it hard for us to recover victims.”
He said search workers had travelled to Donggala district, which remained largely isolated, by boat on Sunday afternoon and had so far recovered eight bodies there.
Sutopo said aid supplies had began arriving in Palu and were being distributed to those in need.
Heavy machinery was also on its way from other areas on Sulawesi.
Search and rescue workers had begun to reach Donggala and Sigi districts, which were largely isolated due to landslides, damaged roads and other infrastructure.
“Donggala bore the bigger brunt of the earthquake than Palu,” Sutopo said.
“The damage is worse but so far the number of casualties is at 11. Hopefully it won’t get higher,” he said.
Sutopo said searchers found 13 bodies and two survivors, including a woman from a collapsed seven-storey hotel in Palu.
Several paragliding athletes, including two South Korean nationals, could be among those trapped in the hotel’s ruins, local media reported.
Workers were still trying to find survivors from a crumbled shopping mall as hopes of finding anyone still alive grew slimmer three days after the earthquake.
Armed forced commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said the dead would be buried in a 1,000-square-metre mass grave.
“We’ll bury them as soon as possible. Let’s hope that it will be done in one or two days,” he said.
Some residents in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, which was hardest-hit by the quake and tsunami, complained about the lack of aid.
“My house moved several metres from the original position,”
“I could not save my wife. I picked up her body myself,” Mahmud, an elderly resident of Balaroa village, told Metro TV.
“No one has come here to help,” he said in an angry voice. “No one has given us assistance, not even a glass of water!”
Amir Sidiq, another resident, recounted how the earth moved violently and upended houses.
“Houses and the road moved about 20 metres from their original positions,” he said. “Some houses moved up but did not collapse. Others were like being swallowed.”
He appealed for help in recovering the bodies buried in collapsed houses.
“No one from the government or any organisation has come to organise the recovery of dead bodies, only us, the local people,” he said. “I guarantee that in one or two days, this place will smell of dead bodies.”
The Sulawesi quakes came after more than 550 people were killed and more than 400,000 were displaced in August in a series of powerful quakes that devastated the Indonesian resort island of Lombok.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area known for seismic upheavals and volcanic eruptions.
About 230,000 people in a dozen countries died after a magnitude-9.1 earthquake off the west coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island spawned a devastating tsunami on December 26, 2004. — dpa
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