162 dead as Indonesia quake topples homes, buildings, roads
CIANJUR, Indonesia — Rescuers on Tuesday struggled to find more bodies from the rubble of homes and buildings toppled by an earthquake that killed at least 162 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s main island of Java.
More heavy equipment reached the hardest-hit city of Cianjur in the country’s most densely populated province of West Java, where the magnitude 5.6 land-based quake struck Monday afternoon. Terrified residents fled into the street, some covered in blood and debris.
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Damaged roads and bridges, power blackouts and lack of heavy equipment previously hampered Indonesia’s rescuers after the quake set off a landslide that blocked streets and buried several houses and motorists.
Power supplies and phone communications have begun to improve in the quake-hit areas on Tuesday.
Many of the dead were public school students who had finished their classes for the day and were taking extra lessons at Islamic schools when the buildings collapsed, West Java Gov. Ridwan Kamil said as he announced the latest death toll in the remote, rural area.
Hospitals were overwhelmed by injured people, and the toll was expected to rise. No estimates were immediately available because of the area’s far-flung, rural population, but many structures collapsed, and residents and emergency workers braced for grim news.
Operations were focused on about a dozen locations in Cianjur, where people are still believed trapped, said Endra Atmawidjaja, the Public Works and Housing spokesperson.
“We are racing with time to rescue people,” Atmawidjaja said, adding that seven excavators and 10 large trucks have been deployed from neighboring Bandung and Bogor cities to continue clearing trees and soils that blocked roads linking Cianjur and Cipanas towns.
Cargo trucks carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies from the capital, Jakarta, were arriving early Tuesday for distribution in temporary shelters.
Still, thousands spent the night in the open fearing aftershocks.
“Buildings were completely flattened,” said Dwi Sarmadi, who works for an Islamic educational foundation in a neighboring district.
Roughly 175,000 people live in the town of Cianjur, part of a mountainous district of the same name with more than 2.5 million people.
