Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered more rescuers to hunt for victims of a devastating earthquake and tsunami on the island of Sulawesi, saying on Tuesday everyone had to be found, as the scale of destruction became clearer.
Some remote areas have been out of contact for more than three days and officials fear
the confirmed death toll of 844 could soar into the thousands when losses in those areas are revealed.
"The are some main priorities that we must tackle and the first is to evacuate, find and save victims who've not yet been found," Widodo told a government meeting to coordinate disaster recovery efforts.
He said he had ordered the national search and rescue agency to send more police and soldiers into the affected districts, some cut off since Friday's 7.5 magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami waves destroyed roads, triggered landslides and downed bridges.
The Red Cross said the situation was "nightmarish" and reports from its workers venturing into one cut-off area, Donggala, a region of 300,000 people north of Palu and close to the epicenter, indicated it had been hit "extremely hard."
"What we need is food, water, medicine, but to up now we’ve got nothing," said an unidentified man standing in ruins.
Four badly hit districts of Sulawesi, one of the
archipelago nations five main islands, have a combined population of
about 1.4 million.
- Reuters
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