World | Other World Stories
3,000 still trapped after quake
People in some devastated areas complain they are yet to see rescuers.
- AP
- Published: 22:48 October 2, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- A rescue team pulls out Susi Revika Wulan Sari, a teacher who had been trapped in the rubble of a destroyed college building since Wednesday's earthquake in Padang, Indonesia, on Friday.
Padang, Indonesia: Rescuers pulled two women alive from their collapsed college, nearly two days after a powerful earthquake devastated western Indonesia, as cries for help from a flattened hotel spurred a frantic search for more survivors on Friday.
The government said nearly 3,000 may still be trapped under the rubble after Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude quake toppled thousands of buildings on Sumatra island. At least 715 people are already confirmed dead. Paramedics laid out dozens of corpses, and the stench of decomposing bodies filled the air.
Some victims have yet to receive help. In a district north of the hard-hit city of Padang, stricken residents said they'd seen no rescue workers. Most structures there had been levelled, and people were using shovels and their bare hands to clear landslides and dig out bodies.
Against a grim backdrop of grief and destruction, rescuers found a reason to cheer: Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 19, an English major sophomore, and a teacher, Susi Revika Wulan Sari, were found alive under the rubble of their college in Padang, the Foreign Language School of Prayoga.
Sari was extricated at 5.20 pm (1020 GMT), almost exactly 48 hours after the college crumbled in the 5.15 pm quake on Wednesday, and she was pinned down by the rubble among dead bodies of her students.
"She was conscious. Only her legs and fingers are swollen because she was squeezed," said the institute's director, Teresia Lianawaty. "Thank God! It is a miracle." Earlier in the day, Virgo was yanked out, also conscious, after a 40-hour ordeal of being trapped in the rubble.
With excited shouts and giving words of encouragement to each other, rescuers pulled Virgo hands-first from a hole drilled in the debris. Her olive-coloured T-shirt almost spotless, Virgo was laid on a stretcher before being taken to hospital to be treated for a broken leg.
"She is fine, conscious and does not have any life-threatening injuries," said Nining Rosanti, a nurse, at the hospital.
Elsewhere in the city, at the site of the former Ambacang Hotel where as many as 100 were feared trapped, rescue workers detected signs of life under a hill of tangled steel, concrete slabs and broken bricks of the three-story structure, said Gagah Prakosa, a spokesman said.
"We heard some voices of people under the rubble, but as you can see the damage is making it very difficult to extricate them," Prakosa said, as a backhoe cleared the debris noisily.
The voices were heard 44 hours after the disaster, giving hope that many lives could still be saved.
But as the first foreign relief teams made their way to the scene, Indonesian officials said a lack of heavy digging equipment was hampering the search.
"Heavy equipment and rescuers are our priority," said spokesman Priyadi Kardono of the Health Ministry's national disaster management agency.
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