Heavy rains hold up search for bodies in Indonesia

By ERIC TALMADGE and IRWAN FIRDAUS, Associated Press Writers

JUMANAK, Indonesia – Heavy rains hampered search teams Sunday in the hills of western Indonesia where hundreds of people were buried alive in landslides triggered by a massive earthquake that wiped out four villages.

Officials said at least 644 people were buried and presumed dead in the hillside villages in Padang Pariaman district on the western coast of Sumatra island.

Aid and rescue efforts have been concentrated in the region's capital, Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 people where several tall buildings collapsed and hundreds died.

But the quake was equally devastating in Pariaman, where entire hillsides were shaken loose, sending down a cascade of mud, rocks and trees. Hordes of aid workers, military personnel, police and volunteers carrying heavy earth-moving equipment finally arrived Sunday to relieve residents who had been digging for corpses with their bare hands.

Women wept silently as bodies were placed in bright yellow bags.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said there was little hope of finding anyone alive.

"We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials," he told reporters.

There is no clear word on the total death toll from Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude quake. The United Nations put the toll at 1,100. The government earlier said 715 were dead and 3,000 missing. But it revised the figure Sunday to say 603 people are confirmed dead and 960 missing, presumed dead. The missing include the people buried in the landslides.

Where the four villages once stood in Pariaman, there was only mud and broken palm trees — the mountainsides appeared gouged bare as if by a gigantic backhoe.

The villages "were sucked 30 meters (100 feet) deep into the earth," said Rustam Pakaya, the head of Indonesia's Health Ministry crisis center. "Even the mosque's minaret, taller than 20 meters (65 feet), disappeared."

In Jumanak village, some 200 to 300 wedding guests at a restaurant were buried alive, including the bride, her 15-year-old brother, Iseh, told The Associated Press.

He said his sister Ichi, 19, had come back to the village for her wedding.

"When the landslide came, the party had just finished. I heard a big boom of the avalanche. I ran outside and saw the trees fall down," said Iseh, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

"I tried to get in front of the house with my brothers. We were so afraid. Landslides started coming from all directions. I just ran and then I waited," he said.

Iseh says he knows of only 10 people from the village who survived. He doesn't know the fate of his parents or brothers.

The adjacent villages of Pulau Aiya, Lubuk Lawe and Limo Koto Timur were also swept away.

By mid-afternoon Sunday, a heavy downpour lashed the area, raising fears of a fresh landslide. The police ordered everybody to evacuate.

The villages were accessible only by foot as landslides cut off all roads. An AP team reached Jumanak after walking about four miles (six kilometers) for 1 1/2 hours.

In Agam district, which is much closer to Padang, a villager said she and hundreds of others had no food, clothes and clean water.

"Our house is gone ... everything is gone," sobbed Laila, who also uses one name.

She said a helicopter dropped some instant noodle packets Saturday. "But we need clean water to cook it," she said, adding that the local river had become dirty as people were using it to wash.

In Padang, rescuers have all but given up hope of finding any survivors in the rubble of the 140-room, Dutch-colonial style Ambacang Hotel. Some 200 people were in the hotel when it collapsed. Search teams have found 29 bodies so far, and no one alive.

"After four days ... to find survivors is almost impossible," said Lt. Col. Harris, the chief of the 50-member rescue team, which comprises military, police and Red Cross personnel. "The smell of decomposing bodies is very strong," said Harris, who uses one name.

According to the National Disaster Management Agency, 83,712 houses, 200 public buildings and 285 schools were destroyed. Another 100,000 buildings and 20 miles (31 kilometers) of road were badly damaged, and five bridges collapsed.

Hundreds of doctors, nurses, search and rescue experts and cleanup crews arrived Saturday at the Padang airport from around the world with tons of food, tents, medicine, clean water, generators and a field hospital.

But with no electricity, fuel shortages and telecommunication outages, the massive operation was chaotic.

Deliveries came on C-130 cargo planes from the United States, Russia and Australia. Japanese, Swiss, South Korean and Malaysian search and rescue teams scoured the debris. Tens of millions of dollars in donations came from more than a dozen countries to supplement $400 million the Indonesian government said it would spend over the next two months.

The U.N. said there are sufficient fuel stocks in the area for four days, but with the road to a major depot cut off by landslides, gasoline prices had jumped six-fold.

Areas with "huge levels of damage to infrastructure were in need of basic food and tents for temporary shelter," it said.

Wednesday's quake originated on the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

On Sunday, a 5.5-magnitude earthquake shook the eastern province of West Papua, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no reports of casualties. The quake's epicenter was 128 kilometers (80 kilometers) northwest of the provincial capital of Manokawar, the only major center of inhabitation. The region is about 3,500 kilometers (2,160 miles) from Sumatra.