Aid for thousands of survivors of an earthquake in Indonesia trickled in today and international rescue teams set to work, but efforts were hampered by power blackouts and a shortage of heavy equipment.
The United Nations said more than 1,000 had been killed in and around Padang, a port city of 900,000 that sits atop one of the world's most active seismic fault lines. Thousands more were feared to be still trapped.
Overstretched rescuers dug through the rubble of schools and other buildings, ccasionally locating survivors but mostly retrieving bodies. As darkness fell, floodlights were rigged up above shattered buildings so work could go on through the night.
"So far victims have received aid but we need to intensify it," said Indonesian Red Cross chief Marie Muhammad. "There are still many roads cut off because of landslides."
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono toured the disaster area and said $10 million in relief would be put to work fast. "No more red tape. This is an emergency, the race is important," the president said.
A giant excavator donated by a cement company tore through piles of twisted iron and rubble, the wreckage of a three-storey college in Padang. Dozens of students were attending after-school lessons there when the quake struck on Wednesday with a force felt in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.
"We have pulled out 38 children since the quake. Some of them, on the first day, were still alive, but the last few have all been dead," said a rescue team leader.
The UN humanitarian chief, John Holmes, told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York that some 1,100 people had been killed in the 7.6 magnitude quake.
Today rescuers pulled out a 21-year-old student alive from the wreckage of a language school, to the applause of a crowd that had gathered to watch. Metro TV said at least eight survivors were detected inside the ruined Dutch-colonial era Ambacang Hotel. Kyodo news agency reported a Japanese rescue team with sniffer dogs was leading the effort to free them.
Indonesia's health minister said the destruction did not appear to be as extensive as was first feared, but the toll of those killed could still number in the low thousands. "I predict the number will not reach 4,000," Siti Fadillah Supari said.
Indonesia's disaster management agency said the number of dead and missing confirmed so far was 806.
Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, has been struggling with a shortage of clean water and electricity. In Pariaman, a small city nearer the quake's epicentre, conditions appeared worse, with thousands of houses reported to have collapsed. Conditions in more remote areas in the mountainous hinterland were unknown.
TV footage from the Pariaman area showed a whole hillside had collapsed, leaving just barren red earth and the odd fallen tree where several villages had been.
Patients evacuated from Padang's badly damaged main hospital were being cared for in tents. Corpses placed in yellow body bags were lined up at an open-air morgue.
International aid pledges poured in and specialist rescue teams from countries including Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea had arrived or were en route.
President Barack Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a child, also offered assistance. "Indonesia is an extraordinary country that's known extraordinary hardship with natural disasters," the US leader said.
Reuters