A strong earthquake shook the Indonesian island of Sulawesi shortly after midnight on Friday and tore down houses and buildings and caused landslides. At least 42 people died.
More than 600 people were injured during the 6.2-magnitude earthquake, which sent people fleeing their homes in the dark. Authorities were still gathering information on the full scale of casualties and damage in the affected areas.
Yusuf Wahil / AP
Many people were reported trapped in the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings.
In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl trapped in the wreckage of a house called for help and said she heard the sound of other family members trapped. “Please help me, it hurts,” the girl told lifeguards, who responded that they wanted to help her desperately.
Rescuers said an excavator was needed to save the girl and other people trapped in collapsed buildings. Other images showed a broken bridge and damaged and flattened houses.
The quake damaged part of a hospital and patients were taken to an emergency tent outside. Lifeguards struggled to extract seven patients and staff who were trapped under tons of debris. After several hours, an excavator came to the rescue and rescuers finally recovered four survivors and three bodies.
Another video showed a crying father asking for help to save his children buried under his demolished house. “They’re trapped inside, please help,” he shouted.
Another video showed officials inspecting a house that had been completely destroyed.
Thousands of displaced people were evacuated to temporary shelters.
The quake centered 22 miles south of Mamuju district in West Sulawesi province at a depth of 11 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The Indonesian disaster agency said the death toll had risen to 34 as Mamuju rescuers recovered 26 bodies trapped in the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings.
The agency said in a statement that eight people were killed and 637 people were injured in Majuju’s neighboring district, Mamuju.
At least 300 homes and a health clinic were reported damaged and about 15,000 people were housed in temporary shelters in the district. Power and phones were turned off in many areas.
West Sulawesi Administration Secretary Muhammad Idris told TVOne that the governor’s office building was one that collapsed in Mamuju, the provincial capital, and that many people are left behind. trapped.
Lifeguard Saidar Rahmanjaya said the lack of heavy equipment made the operation difficult to clean up the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings. He said his team was working to rescue 20 people trapped in eight buildings, including the governor’s office, a hospital and hotels.
“We are running against time to rescue them,” Rahmanjaya said.
Relatives mourned as they watched lifeguards remove the body of a loved one from a damaged house in Mamuju, devastated. It was placed in an orange bag and taken away to be buried.
“Oh my God, why did we have to go through this?” cried Rina, who uses a name. “I can’t save my dear sister … forgive me, sister, forgive us, God!”
President Joko Widodo said in a televised speech that he had ordered his social minister and the heads of the military, police and disaster agency to take emergency response measures and search and rescue operations as soon as possible.
“I, on behalf of the Government and all Indonesians, want to express my deep condolences to the families of the victims,” Widodo said.
The head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, Bagus Puruhito, said rescuers from the cities of Palu, Makassar, Balikpapan and Jakarta were deployed to help Mamuju and Majene.
Two ships were heading to the affected areas from Makassar and Balikpapan carrying lifeguards and search and rescue equipment, while a Hercules plane carrying supplies was flying from Jakarta.
Puruhito is already leading more than 4,100 rescue personnel in a separate mass search operation for victims of the crash of a Sriwijaya Air plane in the Java Sea last Saturday.
Among those killed in Majene were three people killed when their homes were flattened by the quake as they slept, said Sirajuddin, the head of the district’s disaster agency.
Sirajuddin, who is called by a name, said that although the inland earthquake had no potential to cause a tsunami, people in coastal areas ran to higher ground for fear that it could be produce.
Landslides began at three sites and blocked a main road connecting Mamuju with Majene district, said Raditya Jati, a spokesman for the disaster agency.
On Thursday, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake affected the same region, causing damage to several homes but causing no apparent casualties.
The Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency, known by its Indonesian acronym BMKG, warned of the dangers of aftershocks and the potential for a tsunami. Its president urged people in coastal areas to move to higher ground as a precaution.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 260 million people, is often affected by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location in the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific basin.
In 2018, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in Palu on the island of Sulawesi caused a tsunami and caused the earth to collapse in a phenomenon called liquefaction. More than 4,000 people died, many of the victims were buried when entire neighborhoods were swallowed up in the falling ground.
A powerful Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most in Indonesia.