Indonesia Rescuers Race to Find Dozens Missing after Quake

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The death toll from the Monday earthquake is expected to rise further with 2,000 people wounded, some of them critically, and at least two villages still cut off.

Thousands of emergency workers were using excavators to break through blocked roads to access the villages and deploying helicopters to drop vital aid to people still trapped there.

The rescue operation is expected to continue beyond the 72-hour window viewed as the best period to find victims alive.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur again on Thursday, and said 39 people were believed missing in the district of Cugenang alone.

“This afternoon, we will concentrate on this spot,” he told reporters, adding only 24 patients remained at the town’s Sayang hospital, down from 741.

Residents of the district said they had never experienced anything like it before.

“I don’t know why the impact in Cugenang is especially bad. It’s probably fate, God has decided,” Adek, a 52-year-old who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

Many homeless

More than 22,000 houses were damaged and more than 60,000 people were forced to evacuate to shelters, leaving many homeless in the town without adequate supplies.

Some have put up signs asking for help, while others held cardboard boxes to beg for donations after losing everything.

Also read: At Least 46 Dead, 700 Injured in Indonesia’s West Java Quake

Widodo said there were significant challenges getting aid to those most in need.

The spots are too many and the terrain is up and down, which is not easy,” he said.

Another fear is a second disaster. Indonesia is vulnerable to landslides and flash floods in the rainy season, which has already begun and peaks in December in West Java.