A six-year-old boy has been rescued from a collapsed house two days after the devastating earthquake in Indonesia.
The boy was found Wednesday morning (local time) in the hardest-hit city of Cianjur, a firefighter involved in the operation said. The child was still breathing and was treated immediately. It had been under rubble and debris for about 40 hours.
The earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 on the Richter scale struck Monday about 70 kilometers southeast of the capital Jakarta at a depth of ten kilometers. The epicenter was near the city of Cianjur. Many children who attended mosques after school are among the 268 killed, according to the National Civil Protection Service. Searches in the affected areas continued on Wednesday, with more than 150 people still missing.
Many children among the victims
Rescue workers continued to search feverishly for survivors in the affected areas on Tuesday. Work has been hampered by debris blocking roads and power outages in parts of the mostly rural, mountainous area.
The teams used chainsaws and excavators to clear the debris and fallen trees to get to the victims, said 34-year-old Dimas Reviansyah of rescuers. “I haven’t slept since yesterday. But I have to keep going because some of the victims haven’t been found yet.” According to the Indonesian rescue organization Basarnas, many children were among the victims. “They were at school, they still had lessons at 1 p.m.,” says Henri Alfiandi, head of the bureau.
Many survivors spent the night outside, surrounded by rubble, broken glass and chunks of concrete. The injured were treated in makeshift outpatients’ hospitals. The situation was exacerbated by a spate of 62 smaller aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 4 in the 175,000 town of Cianjur.
Indonesia has about 270 million inhabitants, more than half of whom live on the main island of Java. The island nation is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the most geologically active zone on Earth. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common there. (SDA/AFP)