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PALU, Indonesia (AP) – As officials buried hundreds of dead in a mass grave on Monday, thousands of survivors of a devastating earthquake and tsunami gathered at the airport in the heavily damaged city of Indonesia and their homes were dangerous.
The death toll, estimated at 844, coming mainly from the city of Palu, is expected to increase as the authorities reach the isolated areas of the disaster. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Friday at dusk and generated a tsunami that would have reached 6 meters high.
Search and Rescue teams bombed destroyed homes and buildings, including an eight-story collapsed hotel, for trapped survivors, but they needed heavier equipment to clean up the rubble.
Many people were reportedly trapped under broken houses in the Balaroa neighborhood of Palu, where the earthquake provoked violent uprisings, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the agency.
In the Petobo section of the city, the earthquake caused liquefaction of loose, moist soil, creating thick, thick mud that caused considerable damage. "In Petobo, it is estimated that there are still hundreds of victims buried in the mud," Nugroho said.
Residents who found loved ones – alive and dead – over the weekend expressed their frustration that it took rescue teams until Monday to reach Petobo.
Desperation was evident in Palu, a city of over 380,000 inhabitants on the island of Sulawesi.
About 3,000 residents flocked to his airport, trying to board a military plane or one of the few commercial flights, reported local television. A video shows some of them screaming in anger because they can not get on a departing military plane.
"We have not eaten for three days!" Shouted a woman. "We just want to be safe!"
According to Nugroho, nearly 50,000 people have been displaced from their homes, just in Palu, and the hospitals have been submerged.
The Indonesian Air Force confirmed that a Hercules aircraft carrying an unknown number of survivors had been able to leave Palu for Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi.
Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has cleared the acceptance of international aid, Nugroho said, adding that generators, heavy equipment and tents were among the most needed items. The European Union and 10 countries have offered assistance, including the United States, Australia and China, he said.
"We will send food today as much as possible with several devices," Widodo told reporters in the capital, Jakarta, adding that fuel supply should also arrive.
Hundreds of people were queuing up for gas at Palu petrol stations. The waiting cars encircled the traffic in the middle of neighborhoods surrounded by fences painted red and white colors of the Indonesian flag.
Groups of children, some smiling but others with anxious expressions, stood in the middle of the roads and held boxes for cash donations. Signs indicated "We need food" and "We need support" along the roads. Another person asked where their local political leader was.
Three days after the powerful waves hit, the Palu coast remained littered with rubble and some brightly colored cargo containers coming out of the water. The buildings that were still near the water were shells in ruins.
A heavily damaged mosque was half submerged and a shopping center was reduced to a crumpled hulk. A large bridge with yellow arches has collapsed.
The city is built around a narrow bay that apparently would have amplified the strength of the tsunami as the waves surged into the narrow cove. Nugroho said the water would have reached up to 6 meters (20 feet) in places.
Rescuers looking for a collapsed building on Monday night were able to remove living Sapri Nusin, 38, from the rubble.
Indonesian television showed a conscious Nusin talking to his rescuers from the National Agency for Search and Rescue, known as Basarnas, while they were working on the flashlight. He was taken on a stretcher, but his condition was not known.
Elsewhere in Palu, Edi Setiawan said that he and other residents had rescued five children and four adults, including a pregnant woman. His sister and father did not survive, however.
"My sister was found kissing her father," he said. "My mother survived after fighting mud and being rescued by villagers.
Sunday night, a 25-year-old woman was rescued Sunday night at the Roa-Roa hotel, according to the National Agency for Search and Rescue, who posted photos of her on a stretcher.
Indonesian search and rescue agency Novry Wullur said Nurul Istiharah, 15, had managed to survive after being trapped inside his house after collapsing. Her mother and niece had died next to her and she was diving into the water up to the neck and was at risk of drowning before her legs were finally released. She was treated for hypothermia.
The official toll of 844 deaths was released Monday by Nugroho, an increase of only 12 from the previous day, almost all of which took place in Palu. The regencies of Donggala, Sigi and Parigi Moutong – with a combined population of 1.2 million – have not yet been fully evaluated.
The officials dug a 10-meter-by-100-meter trench in Palu and began to lay the dead in brightly colored body bags side by side.
The local army commander, Tiopan Aritonang, said that 545 bodies would be brought to the grave by a single hospital.
The trench can be expanded if necessary, said Willem Rampangilei, head of the Indonesian National Disaster Prevention Agency.
"It must be done as soon as possible for sanitary and religious reasons," he said. Indonesia is predominantly Muslim and a religious custom requires burials shortly after death, usually in one day.
Local army spokesman Mohammad Thorir said the area adjacent to a public cemetery could hold 1,000 bodies. All victims from hospitals were photographed to help families locate where their loved ones were buried.
The video showed residents walking from the body bag to the body bag, opening the top to check if they could identify the faces.
Around noon, teams of workers, their mouths covered with masks, carried 18 bodies in the trench, while a backhoe was waiting to push the ground over the dead. More burials had to follow.
Nugroho said 114 foreigners were in Palu and Donggala during the disaster. All were counted except one Belgian, one South Korean and six French.
This is the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the 'fire belt', an arch of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a major earthquake of magnitude 9.1 off the island of Sumatra, in western Indonesia, triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. More recently, a powerful earthquake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people in August.
Indonesia is a vast archipelago of over 17,000 islands home to 260 million people. Roads and infrastructure are poor in many areas, making access difficult under the best conditions.
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