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On Wednesday, time was running out for anyone trapped in the wreckage of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia five days after the disaster.
According to the country's disaster management agency, the death toll on the island of Sulawesi climbed to 1,347, as rescue teams struggled to locate survivors.
Authorities and aid workers have struggled to reach affected areas made inaccessible by damaged infrastructure. Palu, a small town about 1,500 km northeast of the capital, Jakarta, and other parts of the island of Sulawesi were the hardest hit by the magnitude 7.5 earthquake which caused waves of tsunami six meters high.
At Palu airport, about 300 people tried Wednesday to get on Indonesian military transport planes to be evacuated to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province. The wounded and those with children got a priority spot in the Hercules C-130 aircraft.
"The evacuation took place in order and there was no panic, but they looked visibly tired and stressed," reported Ted Regencia of Al Jazeera.
Outside the Mutiara Al Jufri airport in Palu, hundreds of other people have been camped, some receiving medical treatment, others waiting for a chance to escape.
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| About 300 victims attempted to board military transport aircraft to be evacuated [Ted Regencia/Al Jazeera] |
Despair
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday that rescuers "ran against time" to get their lives back.
According to the government, more than 65,000 homes have been damaged and at least 60,000 people have been displaced and in need of emergency assistance. The UN says 200,000 people are in desperate need of relief.
Earlier, President Joko Widodo called for a reinforcement of the search for survivors, saying everyone had to be found.
Donggala, an area of 300,000 inhabitants located north of Palu and closer to the epicenter, and two other districts (with a combined population of about 1.4 million inhabitants) were also causing in addition to worry.
The first reports of the Red Cross rescuers who reached the outskirts of Donggala District were frightening.
"The situation in the affected areas is a nightmare," said Jan Gelfand, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) office in Jakarta.
"The city of Palu has been devastated and the first reports from Donggala indicate that it has also been extremely hard hit by the double disaster."
Family search
Andrew Thomas, of Al Jazeera, told Palu that there was "a pungent smell of rotting bodies" in the city, buried daily in mass graves.
"All the bodies were not buried, I can tell the smell we encountered when we went down to sea level," he said. "It's a very dark city in every sense of the word."
With roads cut off by landslides and major bridges broken down, physical access remains a "real challenge", according to Nigel Timmins, Humanitarian Director of Oxfam.
"The other is information," he told Al Jazeera. "The electricity is down, the telecommunications are down.For many people, looking for the family is their first priority."
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| Local residents affected by earthquake and tsunami in temporary shelter in Palu [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters] |
Muzair, a resident of the Petobo neighborhood in Palu, said that five of his relatives were still missing.
"I hope the government can help find them," he said. "The ground was spinning, then it suddenly came up and buried the houses.In my heart, I said that if it was the time of my death, what more could I do? I just prayed to God. "
Children would be alone in medical centers looking for their parents.
Because of its location on the Pacific "fire belt", Indonesia is prone to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions and is well-equipped to deal with disasters.
A massive earthquake that occurred in the island of Sumatra in 2004 caused a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in the region, the majority of whom in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
This was the last time the country declared a national disaster.
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