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Rescuers search for survivors in a collapsed mosque on the Indonesian island of Lombok following Sunday’s earthquake. Photo: Reuters

Rescuers pull people alive from rubble as aftershocks hit Indonesia’s Lombok

The north of Lombok has been devastated by the powerful quake that struck on Sunday night, killing at least 105 people

Earthquakes

Soldiers have pulled a man alive from the rubble of a large mosque flattened by an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok, while thousands of homeless villagers waited for aid on Tuesday and stranded tourists camped at beaches and in the lobbies of damaged hotels.

The north of Lombok has been devastated by the magnitude 7.0 quake that struck on Sunday night, killing at least 105 people, seriously injuring more than 230 and destroying thousands of buildings.

Video posted by rescuers online showed a dazed and disoriented man, dust-covered and still wearing his prayer cap, pulled alive from the twisted remains the collapsed mosque. Photo: AP

Two days after the quake, rescuers were still struggling to reach all the affected areas and authorities expected the death toll to rise.

Disaster officials have not said how many people they believe are buried beneath the ruins of the Jabal Nur mosque in Lading-Lading but the village head, Budhiawan, said about 30 based on unclaimed belongings left outside.

Video shot on Monday by a soldier showed rescuers shouting “Thank God” as a man was pulled from a space under the mosque’s flattened roof and then staggered away from the ruins.

“You’re safe, mister,” said one of the soldiers as emotion overcame the man and villagers crowded around him.

About 90 personnel from the military, police and national search and rescue agency swarmed around the flattened building on Tuesday, using cutting equipment to pry apart the tangled debris. By nightfall they were pulling out, saying other areas, including another collapsed mosque, needed their heavy equipment and workers more urgently.

Muhamad Juanda, who narrowly escaped the mosque collapse, said 100 people were praying inside when the earth began to roll. Many got out but dozens were trapped, he said.

“When the earthquake happened, I stopped praying with dozens of other people. I stayed during the first shock, but the shock grew stronger and we rolled around trying to run out,” he said.

Rescuers and soldiers carry a woman, who survived after being trapped in rubble since Sunday's earthquake, in Tanjung, North Lombok. Photo: Reuters

Two people were rescued from the debris on Monday including a woman with a broken leg, said villager Supri Yono, and three were found dead. One body was recovered on Tuesday.

“We’re forced to deal with broken bones in the traditional way at home because the hospital had to deal with hundreds of other injuries,” said Budhiawan, the village head.

Aid organisations, already on Lombok after it was hit a week earlier by a 6.4 quake that killed 16 people, said they were stepping up their humanitarian efforts.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said some villages in the worst-hit areas of the north have not received any help as well as some in the west of the island.

Aid efforts are hampered by damage to bridges and roads and a limited amount of rescue equipment and vehicles on the island, he said.

“They have not been touched by any assistance,” Nguroho said. “Moreover, all shops and stalls there are closed, making the economy totally crippled.”

Hundreds of tourists and workers were still trying to get off three outlying resort islands where power was cut off and hotels and hostels were damaged. Nugroho said so far more than 4,600 foreign and Indonesian tourists had been evacuated from the islands, with ships taking people to ports in Lombok and Benoa, Bali.

Foreign and domestic tourists being evacuated from Gili island. Photo: EPA

British tourist Saffron Amis, who was stranded on Gili Trawangan island, said she spent a second night outdoors as aftershocks rattled the region before finally securing space on a boat.

“We slept in a bungalow until another quake hit us at midnight and then we moved to the beach,” she said.

At Lombok’s airport, dozens of tourists slept on the floor as they waited for flights off the island. Many hotels closed because of damage but some allowed travellers to camp in their lobbies.

“That was my first experience with the earthquake and it was really terrible,” said Lize Reert, a Belgian woman among the several thousand who fled Gili Trawangan. “It was a nightmare in my life.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: survivor found in ruins of mosque
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