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PALU, Indonesia – A mass burial of victims of the earthquake and tsunami began on Monday for hundreds of bodies in the hard-hit city of Palu, as the need for heavy equipment to search the survivors of the disaster became increasingly desperate. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Sulawesi Island at dusk Friday and caused a tsunami that would have reached 20 feet in some places.
At least 832 people were confirmed dead on Sunday night, said the Indonesian Disaster Relief Agency, almost all from Palu. The regencies of Donggala, Sigi and Parigi Moutong – with a total population of 1.2 million – had not yet been fully evaluated.
"It is thought that the death toll will increase, because many bodies were still under the rubble, but many have not yet been found," said the spokesman for the disaster agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
The local army commander, Tiopan Aritonang, said that 545 bodies would be transported from one hospital, but that only some would be buried on Monday. The grave to be excavated in Palu will be 33 feet by 330 and can be expanded if necessary, said Willem Rampangilei, head of the Indonesian Natural Disaster Reduction 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 on a hill could hold up to 1,000 bodies. All victims, from local hospitals, were photographed to help families locate where their loved ones were buried.
Some 1,200 detainees escaped from three detention centers in Sulawesi after Friday's earthquake and tsunami, Agence France-Presse reported on Monday, citing an official from the Ministry of Justice. Sri Puguh Utami, quoted by AFP, was quoted as saying that the detainees fled two settlements in the city of Palu, a city severely affected by the crisis, both of which were overcapacitated. one to Donggala.
"I'm sure they escaped because they feared to be affected by the earthquake.It's a matter of life and death for the prisoners," he said. she declared.
The Donggala facility was burned down and all 343 detainees were still at large, Utami said.
Most of the escapees were behind bars for corruption and narcotics offenses, she added.
Military and commercial aircraft were delivering aid and supplies to the area. But there was an urgent need for heavy equipment to reach the survivors buried in collapsed buildings, including an eight-story hotel in Palu where voices were heard in the rubble.
A 25-year-old woman was found alive Sunday night in the ruins of the Roa-Roa hotel, according to the National Agency for Search and Rescue (NRS), which released photos of the woman lying on a litter covered with a blanket. A number of other survivors were still found and some were removed from buildings in different locations.
The screams from under the hotel, which seemed to be overturned with its walls bursting like pickup sticks, went quiet Sunday afternoon. Officials had estimated that about 50 people could be inside.
"We are doing our best, time is so important here to save people," said Muhammad Syaugi, head of the National Search and Rescue Team. "The heavy equipment is on the way."
Metro TV showed a dozen orange combination rescuers climbing on debris with a stretcher carrying the body of a casualty of a modest business hotel.
Other rescuers worked to try to free a 15-year-old girl trapped under concrete in her home in Palu after she collapsed on her family during the earthquake. Unable to move his legs under the debris, Nurul Istikharah was stuck next to his dead mother and niece. Rescuers also tried to control the water from a leaking pipe, fearing it would drown.
Istikharah was unconscious during part of the effort to free her, but rescuers kept talking to her to try to keep her awake. Others offered him food and water.
Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has authorized the acceptance of international aid, said Thomas Lembong, chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Council, Monday morning. It was not immediately clear what kind of help was approved, but the disaster areas needed medical supplies, fuel, fresh water and experts.
"We will send food today as much as possible with several planes," he told reporters in Jakarta, the capital, adding that a fuel supply was also expected.
In Donggala, the site closest to the epicenter of the earthquake, aerial footage broadcast on Metro TV showed the soft, blond sand of the beaches swept by the sea, as well as some buildings. Some of the city's structures were badly damaged, with jagged plywood walls and pieces of concrete scattered on the sidewalk. Much of the damage, however, seemed to be limited to the waterfront.
Palu, which has more than 380,000 inhabitants, was strewn with debris from the earthquake and tsunami. A heavily damaged mosque was half-submerged and a shopping center was reduced to a crumpled pawn. A large bridge with yellow arches had 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.
In Palu, residents said dozens of people could still be buried at home.
"The ground rises like a spine and suddenly fell, many people were imprisoned and buried under collapsed houses, I could not do anything to help," said Nur Indah, a resident, crying. . "In the evening, some of them turned on their cell phones just to give a sign that they were there.But the lights were off later and the next day."
With hundreds injured, the hospitals damaged by the earthquake were submerged.
Nugroho said that 61 foreigners were in Palu at the time of the disaster. Most of them were found, but a South Korean would have been trapped at the Roa-Roa hotel, while three others, from France and one from Malaysia, would have disappeared.
The agency said that essential planes could land at Palu airport, although AirNav, which oversees air navigation, said the runway was cracked and the control tower had been damaged.
The earthquake / tsunami was the last natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on the "Ring of Fire", 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.
