The official death toll was 78 – up from 46 on Saturday – however the number could rise. The authorities didn’t provide data on what number of survivors were rescued.
Damaged roads and power outages are hampering the seek for earthquake survivors in Indonesia
Damaged roads and power outages are hampering the seek for earthquake survivors in Indonesia
Aerial photos of the destroyed coastal city showed buildings reduced to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete, including the regional governor’s office.
It was unclear what number of more bodies is perhaps under the rubble and whether anyone was still trapped but alive greater than two days after the disaster.
A pair of young sisters, rescued from under a mass of concrete and other rubble, were hospitalized within the hospital.
Meanwhile, bodies were recovered from under the collapsed hospital, and five members of a family of eight were found dead within the crumpled stays of their home.
Thousands of individuals left homeless by the quake took refuge in makeshift shelters – lots of them little greater than tarpaulin-covered tents stuffed with entire families – that were battered by torrential monsoon downpours. They said they were running out of food, blankets and other aid as supplies were rushed to the hardest-hit region.
Many survivors are unable to return to their destroyed homes or were too afraid to return, fearing a tsunami triggered by aftershocks which can be common after strong earthquakes.
“It’s higher to take shelter before something worse happens,” said resident Mamuju Abdul Wahab, who took shelter in a tent along with his wife and 4 children, including a toddler. “We hope that the government will soon provide assistance to the children in the form of food, medicine and milk.”
Concerned about Covid-19 outbreaks in crowded camps, authorities said they were attempting to separate high- and lower-risk groups.
The epicenter of the quake was 36 km (22 mi) south of Mamuju, and the depth of the quake was 18 km.
In neighboring Kalimantan, the Indonesian a part of the island of Borneo, no less than five people were reported dead in severe floods and dozens more were reported missing, while floods killed no less than five people in Manado, a whole lot of kilometers north of the Sulawesi earthquake.
Landslides in West Java this week killed no less than 28 people and the rainy season brought misery to parts of the vast country.
On the eastern tip of the island of Java, the mighty Mount Semeru erupted late Saturday evening, sending a cloud of ash and debris into the sky about 4.5 kilometers high as vibrant red lava flowed down its crater. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Semeru volcano on the Indonesian island of Java erupts hot clouds
The Semeru volcano on the Indonesian island of Java erupts hot clouds
Disaster-prone Indonesia, an archipelago in Southeast Asia with a population of nearly 270 million, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide.
In 2018, a 7.5-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu, Sulawesi, left greater than 4,300 people dead or missing.
On December 26, 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale occurred off the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that killed 220,000 people in all the region, including roughly 170,000 in Indonesia.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Number of earthquake victims: 60 and seek for survivors
