JUMANAK, Indonesia: Heavy rains hampered search teams Sunday in the hills of western Indonesia where hundreds of people were buried alive in landslides triggered by a massive earthquake that wiped out four villages.
Officials said at least 644 people were buried and presumed dead in the hillside villages in Padang Pariaman district on the western coast of Sumatra island.
Aid and rescue efforts have been concentrated in the region’s capital, Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 people where several tall buildings collapsed and hundreds died.
But the quake was equally devastating in Pariaman, where entire hillsides were shaken loose, sending down a cascade of mud, rocks and trees. Hordes of aid workers, military personnel, police and volunteers carrying heavy earth-moving equipment finally arrived Sunday to relieve residents who had been digging for corpses with their bare hands. Women wept silently as bodies were placed in bright yellow bags.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said there was little hope of finding anyone alive. “We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials,” he told reporters.
There is no clear word on the total death toll from Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude quake. The United Nations put the toll at 1,100. The government said on Sunday 603 people are confirmed dead and 960 missing, presumed dead.
Where the four villages once stood in Pariaman, there was only mud and broken palm trees — the mountainsides appeared gouged bare as if by a gigantic backhoe.
The villages “were sucked 30 meters deep into the earth,” said Rustam Pakaya, the head of Health Ministry’s crisis center.
In Jumanak village, some 200 to 300 wedding guests at a restaurant were buried alive, including the bride, her 15-year-old brother, Iseh, said. He said his sister Ichi, 19, had come back to the village for her wedding. The adjacent villages of Pulau Aiya, Lubuk Lawe and Limo Koto Timur were also swept away.
By mid-afternoon Sunday, a heavy downpour lashed the area, raising fears of a fresh landslide. The police ordered everybody to evacuate. The villages were accessible only by foot as landslides cut off all roads.
In Padang, rescuers have all but given up hope of finding any survivors in the rubble of the 140-room, Dutch-colonial style Ambacang Hotel. Some 200 people were in the hotel when it collapsed. Search teams have found 29 bodies so far.
According to the National Disaster Management Agency, 83,712 houses, 200 public buildings and 285 schools were destroyed. Another 100,000 buildings and 31 km of road were badly damaged, and five bridges collapsed.
