As thousands remain unaccounted for in Indonesia, families call in vain to the missing
With cellphone towers and other infrastructure damaged by the quake and an ensuing tsunami, many have not heard from family, who are among thousands believed unaccounted for in the disaster
Anisah Firdaus Bandu’s mother called her in tears from her hometown of Palu Friday evening when a magnitude 7.5 earthquake jolted the island of Sulawesi in eastern Indonesia.
Since then, with cellphone towers and other infrastructure damaged by the quake and an ensuing tsunami, Anisah has not heard from her parents, who are among thousands believed unaccounted for in the disaster that killed at least 800 people, officials said Sunday.
“My mother cried a lot, she tried to pick up my father at his office,” said Anisah, a civil servant in Jakarta, the capital.
“I really tried hard to reach them till now but I can’t.”
As anxious relatives tried to place phone calls in vain and clamoured to board military or relief flights to Palu, a town of about 380,000 people, emergency crews struggled to reach the worst affected areas, including a string of coastal towns that remained cut off by washed-out roads and downed communication lines.