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Name tags are hung on the foot of quake victims outside the morgue at a hospital in Yogyakarta. (Reuters).
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JAKARTA – Rescue workers dug desperately for
survivors on Sunday, May 28, as residents returned to ruined homes on
Indonesia's densely populated island of Java, a day after a powerful
earthquake killed more than 3,700.
Trucks full of volunteers from Indonesian political
parties and Islamic groups, as well as military vehicles carrying
soldiers, headed south from the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta to
Bantul, hardest hit by the quake, to help in the effort, Reuters
reported.
"Kopassus (special forces troops) and
Indonesian Red Cross volunteers are trying to comb through rubble
because thousands of houses are damaged and people may still be
trapped beneath them," Ghozali Situmorang, director general of
aid management for the national social department, told Yogyakarta
radio.
Medical supplies and hundreds of body bags began
arriving overnight at the airport of Yogyakarta, about 25 km (16
miles) north of the Indian Ocean coast where Saturday's 6.2 magnitude
dawn quake was centered just offshore. The airport was closed to
commercial flights after the terminal collapsed.
Up to 20,000 had been injured and more than 100,000
have been left homeless, UNICEF spokesman John Budd told Reuters, but
he said figures were still sketchy.
"Nobody really knows for sure simply because a
lot of people were actually evacuated out ... in order to be treated
and a lot of people who are injured have been turned away," Budd
said.
A prime tourist attraction, Yogyakarta is home to
ancient and protected heritage sites such as Borobudur, the biggest
Buddhist monument on Earth, which survived the quake.
But the Prambanan Hindu temple complex near the
city suffered some damage and local media reported that outer sections
of Yogyakarta's centuries-old royal palaces had also collapsed.
Flattened
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Earthquake victims receiving treatment on the street. (Reuters).
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In Bantul, which accounted for more than 2,000 of
the deaths reported so far, nothing remained except for only a mosque,
which now serves as a mortuary, The Jakarta Post reported Sunday.
The simple wooden homes lay scattered across the
ground, alongside the bodies of their owners.
"We've run out of cloth to cover the
dead," said resident Warjianto who, along with other survivors,
was left with the painful task of removing the bodies of 37 fellow
villagers.
Makeshift plastic tents dotted the roads outside
ruined houses as residents combed through the rubble.
"I'm just here to look for something that I
can use," said Ragil, standing beside the remains of his
collapsed house.
Saturday's quake struck while many were still in
bed. Many houses in the area were poorly constructed, with wooden
roofs that fell on occupants when the quake shook them.
"My grandson died and I had to dig out land
for his tomb myself. I don't know where it was," Cipto Atmodjo,
seated next to his son, who was lying on a cardboard box at a hospital
in Yogyakarta, told Reuters.
The international community raced to offer medical
relief teams and emergency supplies.
The United Nations, which played a major
humanitarian role in Indonesia's past natural disasters including the
tsunami, has sent aid to quake victims.
Australia and the United States have pledged to
send humanitarian aid worth $2.5 million and $2.2 million,
respectively.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
also urged member states to immediately donate for the Indonesians.
"The problem now is that we are still short of
tents, many people are still living on the streets or open areas
without any tents," Suseno, a field officer of the Yogyakarta
disaster task force, told Reuters.
Aid official Situmorang said a lack of clean water
was the other immediate problem.
Saturday's earthquake was the third major tremor to
devastate Indonesia in 18 months, the worst being the quake on Dec.
26, 2004, and its resulting tsunami which left some 170,000 people
dead or missing around Aceh.
Indonesia sits on the Asia-Pacific's so-called
"Ring of Fire", marked by heavy volcanic and tectonic
activity.
