Indonesia: Crucial aid began flowing into Indonesia's earthquake-devastated Nias island yesterday as survivors combed rubble of buildings for loved ones and some, driven by hunger, looted food.
On Nias, as many as 2,000 people are feared to have died and many more were believed trapped under the rubble. A UN statement said 500 people were confirmed dead on the island.
Injured survivors pleaded for help two days after a 8.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed large parts of the island.
"Please sir, help us, we are starving," said a man in Gunungsitoli, the main town on Nias, as dozens of people looted a government store. Police looked on helplessly.
"They drive us away like pigs. We came here because we are hungry," said Abdul Murah Tanjung (55), a Muslim resident of the mostly Christian island, outside the looted store.
Emergency aid began reaching the victims as Indonesian troops arrived to help in rescue and clearing efforts.
Singaporean military helicopters were flying in food, water and medical supplies and evacuating the injured, witnesses said.
Vice president Jusuf Kalla said many people were still trapped beneath the rubble.
"It is estimated more than 1,000, or between 1,000 to 2,000, are dead, because there are still many people under the wreckage of the buildings. Also there are several small islands we are still evaluating," he told reporters in the capital, Jakarta.
An Indonesian disaster official said about 200-300 people died on the isolated Banyak island group just north of Nias.
"But we have not received further information about the homeless and wounded," Nerli Sulitiani, a national disaster agency official in the northern city of Medan, said.
Large parts of Nias, famed as a surfing paradise, have been damaged and much of Gunungsitoli has been flattened.
Survivors used tools and bare hands to dig for loved ones.
One man was pulled out from the rubble of his home by French firefighters, ending a 40-hour ordeal without food or water.
In Gunungsitoli, a town of about 30,000 people, survivors wept over the bodies of relatives brought to mosques, churches and temples.
The stench of death hung in the air.
Officials said logistical problems were making it hard to help survivors on Nias, about 1,400km northwest of Jakarta. About 700,000 live on the island.
In Sibolga on the nearby main island of Sumatra, Bill Sears (65), a paediatrician and professor from California, was waiting to take a night ferry to Nias, accompanied by paramedics and a car full of medical supplies.
Sponsored by a private group, the team had been scheduled to go to tsunami-stricken Aceh but was diverted to Nias.
"There is an acute need for doctors over there. We're not sure what to expect. We just know there has been huge destruction," Prof Sears said.
Relief agency SurfAid International spokeswoman Jude Barrand said hundreds of wounded were receiving no medical treatment as most doctors and nurses had fled fearing a tsunami.
"It's like a ghost town. Most people have run for the hills. The ones who are left are trapped in the rubble of their houses," she said, citing reports from SurfAid staff on Nias.
The Banyak island group, with a population of around 5,000, is the closest land mass to the quake's epicentre but reports of damage there have been slow to emerge, officials said. "They are pretty much right on top of that epicentre," Ms Barrand said.
The United Nations and other international aid agencies - many already in the region because of the December 26th tsunami - have rushed to disaster-hit areas.
The World Food Programme said it had deployed three helicopters and two aircraft. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said a large landing craft carrying body bags, trucks and supplies was due to reach Nias yesterday. In Sibolga, an Indonesian naval ship was loading up with food and relief supplies.
Scores of injured people were being brought into Sibolga on UN and other helicopters and taken to hospitals for treatment. - (Reuters)