Thursday, October 8, 2009

Calls off search for Padang earthquake survivors


Any hope of more survivors being pulled from the wreck of Padang, the earthquake destroyed the city of Sumatra, disappeared yesterday after the government ordered that severely damaged buildings are demolished. The diggers moved as rescue workers frantically tried to find the last survivors. Before the construction of the International Center for Finance, where a woman heard screaming from the ruins at dawn, an Australian rescue worker told the Times that his team had received one hours to arrive before the building was demolished. Exactly one hours later, demolition began. Tracking dogs found no sign of life, but the building fell in a way that many holes that dogs have failed, "said rescue worker, who requested anonymity." There is every chance that is still there, he said that the building began to fall. The order came as torrential rains also threatened by landslides in Padang and surrounding areas hampered rescue. Most organizations that are still in the city, delaying the delivery of much needed food, water and medical supplies for an extra day. Dozens of villages in remote areas devastated by landslides caused by the earthquake of 7.6 magnitude have been without food or water for five days. The death toll stands at more than 600, but is expected to skyrocket when helicopters started arriving in these areas later in the week. The victims are from 200 to 300 guests at a wedding in the village of Jumanak, who were swept away by a landslide after they ran outside when the earthquake struck. The building where the party took place largely intact. Ichi, the 19-year-old woman who died in the landslide, was returned to the village for his marriage, said her 15-year-old brother ISEH. "When the landslide, the party was ready, he said." I heard the loud boom of the avalanche. I ran outside and saw the trees fall. Landslides have started coming in all directions. I ran and ran. " More than 83,000 houses were destroyed or heavily damaged in ten districts around Padang, Indonesia, according to Disaster Management Agency. The conditions in most villages are now terrible. Thousands of people sleeping outside without shelter and drinking from streams that appear floating in them. "I am very worried about what happens in the outer regions," said Dr. Rakhmat Aprandi Fajar, who is in charge of medical care for refugees in the village Tandikat, one of the hardest hit. "People drink water from streams because they are so low. The incidence of the disease, skin infections and respiratory problems will go very quickly. It will be very poor in remote villages and I am afraid that people die without any help there." Some residents are so desperate for food they have taken to looting of aid trucks through, according to Ade Edwar, the director of the Government. "We must arrest those who dishonored our country and to prosecute," said Edwar. The conditions are wild Tandikat. People drinking from open streams and Dr. Fajar is forced to the identification of corpses to an open field next to the tent where the wounded are treated. The identification process is a fundamental business. The Times looked like a body was dumped on the floor next to the medical tent, unpacked and examined for features of a crowd of onlookers gawping. It was the body of a child, black and swollen. Inside the tent, the patients lying on mats on the floor, vulnerable to the rain that filters through their tents. Elsewhere, where it has not arrived, the clinics are still the treatment of patients suffering from serious injuries and traditional medicine. In the village Gagak Sarang, with 100 patients on stretchers in the clinical setting, broken legs are placed in bamboo casings and small operations are performed without anesthesia. "Things are very bad," said Charles Ham, a spokesman for the Hope Foundation, which has sent teams of doctors in the villages. "We have no clear idea of how bad it is, because many of these places are terribly isolated," he said. "We try to help people, but it will take time.