PADANG – Markets reopened and some children attended school in the earthquake-shattered city of Padang yesterday, but inland villages engulfed by landslides were to be left as mass graves to focus on getting aid to survivors.
Relief workers saw little chance of finding anyone alive in the rubble of buildings five days after a 7.6 magnitude quake hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, perhaps killing thousands.
While aid and international rescue teams have poured into Padang, a city of 900,000, help has been slow to reach remote inland areas cut off by landslides.
When they have managed to reach the interior, rescuers have found entire villages obliterated by landslides and survivors begging for food, water and shelter.
“Instead of the extra cost of evacuating the corpses, it’s better to allocate the money for the living,” Ade Edward, head of the West Sumatra earthquake co-ordinating desk, was quoted by Kompas newspaper as saying.
Health officials said five villages had been buried in torrents of mud and rock torn out of the lush green hills by the force of the quake, killing about 600.
“No one could have survived when the landslide happened,” said Jumahadi Sultan, a resident in the village of Kapala Koto about 60km (37 miles) from Padang.
On the route to the villages hit by landslides there was anger from locals who felt aid was bypassing them. “People are so angry here they have stopped the aid trucks asking why are they sending aid to villages where so many are dead,” said one.
“All of us are hungry. We hear on the radio very nice words that aid is pouring in, but where is it?” another asked. – (Reuters)