PADANG, Indonesia: Indonesia said Thursday it feared thousands had died in a major earthquake as exhausted rescue workers clawed through mountains of rubble with their bare hands in a race to find survivors.
The first flights laden with food, medicine and body bags began arriving in the devastated region on Sumatra island as another powerful quake struck further south, causing more injuries and sparking panic.
Wednesday afternoon s 7.6-magnitude quake toppled buildings and led to fires in Padang, home to nearly a million people on the coast of Sumatra, and saw the city largely without power and communications.
The official death toll hit at least 770 with 294 people seriously injured, but those numbers are expected to soar as the full scale of the tragedy unfolds. Many districts remain inaccessible to emergency services.
Our prediction is that thousands have died, health ministry crisis center head Rustam Pakaya said.
Rescue teams from the Indonesian army and health ministry descended on the city and surrounding towns to hunt for survivors in the twisted wreckage of collapsed buildings and homes, with work expected to go on into the night.
In pouring rain that hampered rescue work early in the day, overwhelmed police and soldiers clawed through the tangled remains of schools, hotels and the city s main M. Djamil hospital.
Padang, which lies between the Indian Ocean and the Bukit Barisan mountains, was a chaotic scene of traffic jams and rubble set against the constant din of sirens as ambulances tried to negotiate the gridlock.
At the M. Djamil hospital, a constant stream of injured residents were dropped off at hastily erected tents where doctors worked frantically to treat victims.
Emilzon, a medic who gave only one name, said they were treating hundreds of people for broken bones, head injuries and trauma, many of whom had accidents when the quake hit.
We are running out of doctors and nurses because we are overwhelmed with patients, he said.
In front of a collapsed school, 49-year-old mother Andriani waited in tears as police picked through the rubble for her 14-year-old daughter and dozens of other children believed trapped inside.
Police said the bodies of eight children had been hauled from the school, a college where they had been taking extra classes, while another nine youngsters had been pulled out alive.
Authorities said they were suffering from a desperate shortage of heavy machinery but the military said planes loaded with tents and blankets had been dispatched to help the thousands left homeless by the disaster.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who returned from the United States and flew to Padang, said emergency services should prepare for the worst.
It s better to overestimate than to underestimate, he told reporters. It is better to send more enforcement, especially in emergency aid… which can help those who are still buried in the rubble.
The government said it had approved 26 million dollars in cash to help victims and international aid groups dispatched relief teams.
The quake struck off Sumatra s west coast, 47 kilometres (29 miles) northwest of Padang on a major faultline that scientists have long warned was set to release pent-up energy.
A series of earthquakes in recent years, including one of magnitude 8.2 that struck Bengkulu province in September 2007 and another off Aceh that triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, have released energy along the faultline.
