unami in Indonesia: cries for help from rubble amid fears thousands dead

Aftershocks rattle island of Sulawesi as vice-president warns nation to expect

significant rise in fatalities after tsunami

Indonesia tsunami death toll expected to rise, say officials �C live updates
Kate Lamb in Jakarta and agencies

@_KateLamb
Sun 30 Sep 2018 06.39 BST First published on Sun 30 Sep 2018 02.11 BST
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A bridge in Palu damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Indonesian
island of Sulawesi.
A bridge in Palu damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Indonesian
island of Sulawesi. Photograph: Antara Foto/Reuters
Indonesia��s vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, has warned the death toll from the
earthquake and tsunami that struck the island of Sulawesi could rise into the
thousands, as more than 150 aftershocks hit the region.

The confirmed death toll from the disaster has reached 832, the national disaster
agency said on Sunday afternoon, but that is expected to rise significantly as
rescuers scramble to reach the worst-hit areas. Kalla said there had been ��no
word�� yet about casualties in Donggala, home to 300,000 people. Authorities also
fear many people in the area may have been washed out to sea.

There were particular concerns about the whereabouts of hundreds of people

preparing for a beach festival that had been due to start on Friday, a spokesman
for the BNPB national disaster agency said.

Aerial footage shows tsunami destruction in Sulawesi �C in pictures

At least 540 people had been badly injured, the agency said, as hospitals struggled
to cope with the influx of casualties, setting up open-air clinics to treat the
injured.

Some of those wounded, including Dwi Haris, who suffered a broken back and
shoulder, rested outside Palu��s army hospital, where patients were being treated
outdoors due to continuing strong aftershocks. Tears filled his eyes as he
recounted feeling the violent earthquake shake the fifth-floor hotel room he shared
with his wife and daughter.

��There was no time to save ourselves. I was squeezed into the ruins of the wall, I
think,�� said Haris, adding that his family was in town for a wedding. ��I heard my
wife cry for help, but then silence. I don��t know what happened to her and my
child. I hope they are safe.��

Rescuers working to retrieve people from the Roa Roa hotel in Palu said they could
hear the voices of people inside but did not have the heavy equipment needed to get
to them. As of Sunday morning, emergency teams had rescued five people from the
rubble of the hotel. According to the hotel��s management there were 26 rooms full
at the time of the quake, with up to 50 guests. Two fatalities have been confirmed
there.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho

(@Sutopo_PN)
Munculnya lumpur dari permukaan tanah yang menyebabkan amblasnya bangunan dan pohon
di Kabupaten Sigi dekat perbatasan Palu akibat gempa 7,4 SR adalah fenomena
likuifaksi (liquefaction) Likuifaksi adalah tanah berubah menjadi lumpur seperti
cairan dan kehilangan kekuatan. pic.twitter.com/uxTODECMEX
September 29, 2018
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The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, who visited the region on Sunday, said
earlier the military was being called in to the region to help search-and-rescue
teams get to victims and find bodies following Friday��s 7.5-magnitude earthquake
and 1.5-metre (5ft) tsunami.

The cities of Palu and Donggala remain without power and fuel supplies are running
low. Some government planes carrying relief supplies managed to land at the main
airport in Palu, although officials said it would likely remain closed to
commercial flights for days.

On Sunday BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho shared video showing the
��liquefaction�� of the land when the tsunami struck.

Aerial footage shows tsunami destruction in Sulawesi �C in pictures

In Palu �C home to 350,000 people �C partially covered bodies lay near the shore
and survivors sifted through a tangled mess of corrugated steel roofing, timber,
rubble and flotsam. One man was seen carrying the muddy corpse of a small child.

��Many corpses are scattered on the beach and floating on the surface of the sea,��
one local resident, Nining, told kompas.com.

One of the first casualties of the earthquake, 21-year-old Anthonius Gunawan Agung,
is being hailed a hero after he stayed in the air traffic control tower as the
earthquake hit, to make sure that a flight to Bali could take off safely.

��When the earthquake occurred, Agung had cleared Batik Air for takeoff. He waited
until the aircraft was safely in the air before leaving his air traffic controller
cabin,�� Yohanes Sirait, a spokesman for state-owned flight navigation service
AirNav Indonesia, said in a statement on Saturday.

Agung then jumped from the control tower as it was collapsing, but he did not
survive the fall.

Many residents did not return to their homes as night fell and slept in makeshift
shelters, terrified that powerful aftershocks could topple damaged homes.

Villagers view a ship swept ashore by tsunami in Palu, Central Sulawesi,

Indonesia.
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Villagers view a ship swept ashore by tsunami in Palu, Central Sulawesi,
Indonesia. Photograph: Rio Mario/AP
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A Facebook page for information on Palu city has become a pop-up ledger for missing
persons, with family members posting pictures of their missing children, wives,
fathers and grandparents, in the hope that someone will find them.

Some voiced criticism of the agency that lifted the tsunami warning. The agency
said it followed standard operating procedure and made the call to ��end�� the
warning based on data available from the closest tidal sensor, around 200km from
Palu.

��We have no observation data at Palu. So we had to use the data we had and make a
call based on that,�� said Rahmat Triyono, head of the earthquakes and tsunami
centre at BMKG. He said the closest tide gauge, which measures changes in the sea
level, only recorded an ��insignificant�� 6cm wave and did not account for the
giant waves near Palu.

We have heard nothing from Donggala and this is extremely worrying

Jan Gelfand, Red Cross
The tsunami was triggered by a strong quake that brought down buildings and sent
locals fleeing for higher ground as a churning wall of water crashed into Palu.
��We all panicked and ran out of the house�� when the quake hit, said Anser
Bachmid, a 39-year-old Palu resident. ��People here need aid �C food, drink, clean
water.��

Dramatic video footage captured from the top floor of a parking ramp in Palu,
nearly 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the quake��s epicentre, showed waves bring
down several buildings and inundate a large mosque.

About 17,000 people have been evacuated, the disaster agency said.

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��This was a terrifying double disaster,�� said Jan Gelfand, a Jakarta-based

official at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
��We have heard nothing from Donggala and this is extremely worrying. There are
more than 300,000 people living there. This is already a tragedy, but it could get
much worse.��

Malaysia and Australia are among the countries that have offered to send help. ��If
he [Widodo] needs our help, he��ll have it,�� the Australian prime minister, Scott
Morrison, said on Sunday.

1:06
Massive wave hits Palu in Indonesia �C video
Friday��s tremor was also felt in the far south of the island in its largest city
Makassar and on neighbouring Kalimantan, Indonesia��s portion of Borneo island.

The initial quake struck as evening prayers were about to begin in the world��s
biggest Muslim majority country on the holiest day of the week, when mosques are
especially busy.

Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth. It lies on the

Pacific ��Ring of Fire��, where tectonic plates collide and many of the world��s
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

Earlier this year, a series of powerful quakes hit Lombok, killing more than 550
people on the holiday island and neighbouring Sumbawa.

Indonesia has been hit by a string of other deadly quakes including a devastating
9.1-magnitude tremor that struck off the coast of Sumatra in December 2004.

That Boxing Day quake triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the
region, including 168,000 in Indonesia.