Rescuers picking through the grim aftermath of Indonesia’s quake-tsunami issued a fresh public health warning Saturday as more decaying corpses were unearthed from beneath the ruined city of Palu.
More than a thousand people may still be missing in the seaside city on Sulawesi island, officials said, after the region was hit by a powerful quake and a wall of water, with the official death toll now at 1,571.
Hopes of finding anyone alive a full eight days since the disaster have all but faded, though Indonesian authorities have not officially called off the search for survivors.
There are fears that vast numbers of decomposing bodies could be buried beneath Petobo and Balaroa – two areas virtually wiped off the map – and authorities have warned survivors to steer clear as they brace for more macabre discoveries.
“Most of the bodies we have found are not intact, and that poses a danger for the rescuers. We have to be very careful to avoid contamination,” Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for Indonesia’s search and rescue effort, told AFP from Palu.
“We have vaccinated our teams, but we need to be extra cautious as they are exposed to health hazards. This is also a health concern for the public. It is very hard to control the crowd… People might be exposed to danger.”
‘Just bodies’
At a massive government housing complex at Balaroa, where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush, soldiers in face masks clambered over the giant mounds of mud, brick and cement.
The troops peeking under collapsed walls and peeling back corrugated sheets do not have to look hard.
Sergeant Syafaruddin, from an army unit in Makassar south of Palu, asks for a body bag to be brought across to a spot near where the remnants of an Islamic school now stands.
Two of his soldiers emerge from the ditch with the body bag sagging in the middle but looking too light to be a corpse — they say they found the heads of two adults and one child.
At another spot, a digger is called to turn over the devastated remains of a home. With almost no effort he unearths the body of a long haired lady buried in mud.
At the flattened Hotel Roa-Roa – where early optimism that survivors might be found faded as the days wore on and tropical heat intensified – search teams also prepared body bags.
Rescuers reviewed CCTV footage Saturday to get a sense of where the doomed guests could be buried beneath the impenetrable mountain of twisted rubble. (AFP)
