An Indonesian brother cries for his sister, his niece, a week after the earthquake

PALU, Indonesia (Reuters) – Ichsan Hidayat has found his sister and baby, who were killed when their neighborhood became a sea of ​​mud and debris, devastated by a major earthquake on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Hidayat was not in Sulawesi last Friday when the magnitude 7.5 earthquake caused a phenomenon called liquefaction of the soil, which turns the soil into a veritable quagmire.

The Petobo district, south of the city of Palu, where his sister, Husnul Hidayat, lived with his 43-day-old daughter, Aisah, was wiped out.

Rescuers who found the bodies told Hidayat that her sister had been found holding the baby against her chest.

"Today, I prayed that they will be in a better place. They deserve better, "Hidayat told Reuters as he left Friday prayers at a mosque in central Palu, 1,500 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, but also pockets of Christians, particularly in Sulawesi, and other religions.

The official record of the earthquake and tsunami provoked at 1,558, but it will certainly increase as the bodies are found.

Most of the deaths were recorded in Palu. The numbers for the more remote areas, some of which are still cut by destroyed roads and landslides, are spinning or not at all.

Nobody knows how many people were dragged to death when the ground under Petobo and the neighboring areas south of Palu dissolved so violently.

The national disaster relief agency said 1,700 houses in one neighborhood had been swallowed up and hundreds of people killed.

Hasnah, 44, also a resident of Petobo, finds it hard to remember all the parents she seeks to find in the vast expanse of mud and debris.

"More than half of my family left," said Hasnah sobbing. "I can not even count how much. Two of my children left, my cousins, my sister, my brother-in-law and their children, all gone. "

Houses have been sucked into the ground, torn and deviated several hundred meters by the mud.

"The earth was like a blender, mixing everything in its path," said Hasnah, who, like many Indonesians, only has one name.

GRAPHIC: Catastrophe in Sulawesi – tmsnrt.rs/2OqQlUo

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Hasnah said she has enough food and water, but she is furious that a search and rescue operation in her area only started on Thursday.

"I'm so disappointed, they said they would come with the heavy machines but they did not, they lied."

Tired of waiting for help, the villagers themselves searched, said Hasnah.

"We marked the possible bodies with sticks. You can see a foot out, but there is no one to dig them up. "

The first signs of recovery are evident in Palu. Electricity has been restored and some stores and banks have reopened. Help and fuel arrive.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, visiting the disaster area, said the recovery would be over in two years, starting with a two-month emergency response phase during which all people having lost their home would get a temporary shelter.

Doctors have gathered to help other parts of Indonesia.

The hospital Budi Agung has a capacity of 134 beds and twenty others are installed in a tent on the outside. They are all full.

Doctors said that many patients were at high risk of infection because they were buried in the mud.

"The number and nature of the wounds was much worse because of the liquefaction and the mud," said a doctor, Muhammad Riend.

Rescuers are growing in outlying areas, where locals say they have been looking for coconuts, bananas and cassava.

The villagers stormed a Red Cross helicopter that landed Friday in a floodplain in Sigi district, south of Palu, to drop blankets and tents, a Reuters witness said.

They searched for supplies unloaded from the back of the plane while his rotors were spinning.

Sulawesi is one of the five main islands of the archipelago and, like the others, is exposed to frequent earthquakes and tsunamis.

GRAPHIC: Destruction at Palu – tmsnrt.rs/2IDFukK