The Washington Post : Indonesia quake toll soars above 250 amid frantic search for survivors

 The Washington Post

Indonesia quake toll soars above 250 amid frantic search for survivors

By Aisyah Llewellyn and Rebecca Tan 

Updated November 22, 2022 at 6:32 a.m. EST|

Published November 22, 2022 at 1:14 a.m. EST

Indonesian policemen and rescue search for victims from a landslide caused by a 5.6-magnitude earthquake, in Cianjur, Indonesia, Tuesday. (Adi Weda/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

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MEDAN, Indonesia — When the building around journalist Nandang Kurnaedi began to shake wildly on Monday afternoon his first thoughts were immediately of his wife and children at home. With relief he found out they had managed to escape the devastating tremor that slammed the Indonesian district of Cianjur, but their neighbors were not so lucky.

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“My wife and children watched as a mudslide washed away our neighbors’ house with them inside it,” he said. “I don’t know why they couldn’t get out in time.” The bodies of their neighbor and her three children were eventually found in the mud and laid out in the main square of the village along with the others who had died, further traumatizing Kurnaedi’s own two children who watched it all unfold.

By Tuesday the toll had risen to 268 dead in the 5.6-magnitude earthquake, whose shallow depth of just six miles ensured maximum havoc. It wasn’t just the collapsing buildings that claimed lives, said local authorities, but the landslides that buried whole villages and destroyed roads.

Why the 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Indonesia was so deadly

At a news conference on Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Suharyanto, the head of the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure (BNPB), said “as many as 122 have been identified” of the victims but he warned that another 151 people were still missing.

The regional governor, Ridwan Kamil, said that the majority of the dead were children, but the BNPB’s Abdul Muhari said it was too early to tell.

“We are waiting for the hospitals in Cianjur to send us the data that they have about the sex and ages of the victims,” Muhari said.

An aerial view Tuesday of an area affected by landslides after an earthquake hit Cianjur, West Java province, Indonesia. (Antara Foto/Reuters)

Faisal Syahreza, a writer from Cikaroya village, said many children were among those injured as they had been at school or on their way home when the quake hit.

“It was a busy time for them in the middle of the afternoon,” he said, adding that the children in his village seem to be in a state of shock and were afraid to go home for fear that their houses would collapse on them. “They will need help to get over what happened and accept it.”

Photos: More than 160 killed in Indonesian earthquake

Located about 45 miles away from the capital, Jakarta, the mountainous Cianjur area is densely populated and home to about 2.2 million residents. Though the magnitude of the quake wasn’t particularly high, its location close to the surface and the lack of quake-resistant buildings caused extensive devastation.

Indonesia sits on the notorious Ring of Fire circling the Pacific Ocean and is characterized by frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions.

Monday’s quake, which reduced rows of buildings into rubble and briefly cut off electricity to entire communities, could be the deadliest in Indonesia since 2018, when twin disasters — a 7.5-magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami — killed more than 2,000 on the central island of Sulawesi.

At least 13 schools were affected and more than 7,000 people have been displaced from their homes, according to the disaster agency. Officials are now in need of emergency supply items like tarpaulins, tents, medicine and drinking water, Muhari said.

By Tuesday, rescue efforts were slowly gaining pace, with trucks and earthmovers brought in from nearby cities to search for victims beneath the mud and rubble, and to clear blocked roads.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur on Tuesday, promising reconstruction and aid to the affected families.

"My instruction is to prioritize saving victims that are still trapped under rubble,” he told local media.

Rescuers carry the body of an earthquake victim recovered from under the rubble of a collapsed building in Cianjur, Indonesia on Tuesday. (Tatan Syuflana/AP)

Like many of those whose homes were destroyed by the quake, Kurnaedi’s family is now sleeping in tents made of tarpaulins which have been lashed together in the main square.

At night, cold winds make the temporary shelters uncomfortable for the children, he said, adding that he hoped that the government would soon send blankets, tents and other equipment.

“We have nowhere else to go,” he said.

Rebecca Tan reported from Singapore.

Rebecca Tan is the Southeast Asia Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. She was previously a reporter on the Local desk, covering government in D.C. and Maryland. She was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in public service for coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  Twitter