Padang Indonesia earthquake 2009

Padang’s mayor has desperately appealed for assistance on Indonesian radio station el-Shinta after a 7.6 magnitude quake devastated the West Sumatra city on Wednesday evening.

“We are overwhelmed with victims and ... lack of clean water, electricity and telecommunications,’’ Mayor Fauzi Bahar said. “We really need help. We call on people to come to Padang to evacuate bodies and help the injured.”

Hundreds of people were trapped under collapsed buildings in Padang alone, including a four-star hotel, he said. Other collapsed or seriously damaged buildings included hospitals, mosques, a school and a mall.

“I was studying math with my friends when suddenly a powerful earthquake destroyed everything around me,’’ an unidentified boy told the TVOne broadcaster. He escaped out of the top floor just as the three-story structure, used for after-school classes, crumpled.

TVOne footage showed heavy equipment breaking through layers of cement in search of more than 30 children it said were missing and feared dead.

Thousands were believed trapped throughout the province, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry’s crisis center.

Search and rescue teams were working in heavy rain when the second strong quake struck, causing widespread panic and badly damaging 30 houses in Jambi, another Sumatran town. It was not yet clear if there were injuries, said Jambi Mayor Hasfiah. Frantic parents were seen rushing to local schools in search of their children.

The shaking in Padang felled trees and crushed cars. A foot could be seen sticking out from one pile of rubble. At daybreak, residents used their bare hands to search for survivors, pulling at the wreckage and tossing it away piece by piece.

“People ran to high ground,’’ said Kasmiati, who lives on the coast near the quake’s epicenter. “I was outside, so I am safe, but my children at home were injured,’’ she said before her cell phone went dead.

The loss of telephone service deepened the worries of those outside the stricken area.

“I want to know what happened to my sister and her husband,’’ said Fitra Jaya, who owns a house in downtown Padang and was in Jakarta when the quake hit. “I tried to call my family there, but I could not reach anyone at all.’’

Hospitals struggled to treat the injured.

Indonesia’s government announced $10 million in emergency response aid and medical teams and military planes were being dispatched to set up field hospitals and distribute tents, medicine and food rations.

AP

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