Residents of Palu, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, turned to looting on Sunday as they struggled to survive in the aftermath of a deadly 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that has so far killed 832 people. Looters were spotted taking items from the badly damaged Ramayana shopping mall and plundering fuel stations. One earthquake survivor told the Telegraph that he had been woken by a noisy crowd ransacking his local mini-market. “Without justifying it, I understand why they did it,” said the man, who identified himself by one name, Suwanto. “My wife told me last night that our food supplies will last only two days, and we only have eggs and instant noodles. The big problem is clean water,” he added. Joko Widodo, the Indonesian president, who visited Palu on Sunday, urged residents to be patient. “I’m aware there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved as soon as possible,” he said. Electricity has been cut off and fuel is in short supply in the worst affected areas around Palu and the nearby town of Donggala. Damage to the runway and control tower at Palu airport has hampered both aid and the rescue efforts. Roads into the area have also been severely damaged. Masih banyak masyarakat yang berada di pantai saat tsunami sebelum menerjang Pantai Kota Palu (28/9/2018). Tidak ada sirine berbunyi. Masyarakat banyak yang tidak tahu ancamannya sehingga masih melakukan aktivitas di pantai. Akhirnya banyak korban akibat tsunami. #palutsunamipic.twitter.com/hwxw29UlBR— Sutopo Purwo Nugroho (@Sutopo_PN) September 29, 2018 Amali, a truck driver from the nearby province of Gorontalo, spoke of his terror in trying to bring in much-needed supplies along collapsed roads. “In one part, we have to go past the edge of a cliff. If the driver loses concentration for just a moment then the truck could fall over the side,” he said. “I’m thinking the whole time about the disaster victims. But what if I become a victim? I have a wife and three small children. I want to see them grow up,” he said. The full extent of the devastation in Sulawesi has not yet been revealed as rescue teams are still struggling to reach the worst-affected areas. Disaster management officials have warned the death toll could rise into the thousands. Questions over warnings Indonesia’s disaster authorities are now under scrutiny after scientists were taken by surprise by the tsunami, which reportedly reached 20 feet in height and hit the coastline at extremely high speeds measuring in the hundreds of miles per hour. The approach of the wave was caught in a chilling smartphone video that went viral on social media. Like a scene from a horror movie, a man screams desperately to warn people loitering on the beachfront street below of the approaching tsunami. From his standpoint a few storeys above ground, he can see the speeding surge of water but people are slow to react, their view of the sea blocked by a row of beach huts. Cars and motorbikes drive past with no sense of urgency, seemingly unaware of the coming disaster. The man cries louder, but as the murky waters hit with brutal force, submerging the huts and wreaking havoc, his voice breaks into sobs as those he tried to save run belatedly for the stairs. Noticeably absent from the video is the sound of a tsunami warning siren, which could have saved lives. Indonesia’s geophysics agency had initially issued a tsunami warning but lifted it 34 minutes later based on data available from the closest tidal sensor, around 125 miles from Palu. How Palu became a death trap – and why magnitude of waves was 'surprising' It emerged on Sunday that a life-saving early warning system had been stalled in the testing phase for five years. The high-tech system of seafloor sensors and fibre-optic cable was supposed to replace a system set up after an earthquake and tsunami killed nearly 250,000 people in the region in 2004. But delays in getting $69,000 to complete the project means it hasn't moved beyond the prototype phase. Palu’s catastrophe was made worse by the fateful timing of a cultural beach festival, which had drawn hundreds of people to the shoreline at dusk, the moment the tsunami struck. Digging for survivors Rescuers are racing to try to find survivors buried under the rubble of the double natural disaster, but lack heavy machinery. Some 50 people, including a South Korean tourist, are believed to be trapped in the wreckage of the Roa-Roa hotel. This aerial picture shows the remains of a ten-storey hotel in Palu Credit: AFP A young woman was pulled alive from the rubble of the hotel, the news website Detik.com reported. “We've got information from people that their relatives are still inside, so we’re focusing on that, especially to find survivors,” a rescuer identified as Yusuf, working at the ruins of the mall, told Metro TV. Evakuasi korban tertimbun gempa di Hotel Roa-Roa Kota Pqluterus dilakukan Tim SAR Gabungan dikoordinir Basarnas. Diperkiran terdapat 50 orang di bawah reruntuhan bangunan. Alat berat diperlukan untuk evakuasi. pic.twitter.com/LGWwp3OEhE— Sutopo Purwo Nugroho (@Sutopo_PN) September 30, 2018 Muhammad Syaugi, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said that he could hear people calling out from the collapsed eight-story Roa-Roa Hotel. “I can still hear the voice of the survivors screaming for help while inspecting the compound,” he said. “What we now desperately need is heavy machinery to clear the rubble. I have my staff on the ground, but it's impossible just to rely on their strength alone to clear this.” The Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Willem Rampangilei, told reporters in Sulawesi late on Saturday rescuers were struggling in their hunt for more victims. “We are having difficulty deploying heavy equipment to find victims under the rubble of buildings because many of the roads leading to Palu city are damaged,” he was quoted by the Kompas newspaper as saying. Indonesian earthquake and tsunami About 10,000 displaced people were scattered at 50 different places in Palu, he said. As more footage emerged of the moment disaster struck, one astonishing clip showed the carnage apparently being wrought by the quake alone. Video footage showed trees, buildings and a communications tower being swept through a rural landscape by a landslide caused by liquification of the soil, according BNPB's Nugroho. Humanitarian crisis For survivors, the situation was increasingly dire. “It feels very tense,” said 35-year-old mother Risa Kusuma, comforting her feverish baby boy at an evacuation centre in the gutted city of Palu. “Every minute an ambulance brings in bodies. Clean water is scarce.” Residents were seen returning to their destroyed homes, picking through waterlogged belongings, trying to salvage anything they could find. Hundreds of people were injured and hospitals, damaged by the magnitude 7.5 quake, were overwhelmed. Some of the injured, including Dwi Haris, who suffered a broken back and shoulder, rested outside Palu's Army Hospital, where patients were being treated outdoors due to continuing strong aftershocks. Tears filled his eyes as he recounted feeling the violent earthquake shake the fifth-floor hotel room he shared with his wife and daughter. “There was no time to save ourselves. I was squeezed into the ruins of the wall, I think,” Haris told Associated Press, adding that his family was in town for a wedding. “I heard my wife cry for help, but then silence. I don't know what happened to her and my child. I hope they are safe.” Hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of those injured, with many people being treated in the open air. There were widespread power blackouts. “We all panicked and ran out of the house” when the quake hit, said Anser Bachmid, a 39-year-old Palu resident. 'I heard people shouting, Water! Water!' Palu, which has more than 380,000 people, was strewn with debris from the earthquake and tsunami. A mosque heavily damaged by the quake was half submerged and a shopping mall was reduced to a crumpled hulk. A large bridge with yellow arches had collapsed. Bodies lay partially covered by tarpaulins and a man carried a dead child through the wreckage. Nina, a 23-year-old woman who goes by one name, was working at a laundry service shop not far from the beach when the quake hit. She said the quake destroyed her workplace, but she managed to escape and quickly went home to get her mother and younger brother. An aerial view shows bridge damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in Palu Credit: Reuters “We tried to find shelter, but then I heard people shouting, 'Water! Water!'” she recalled, crying. “The three of us ran, but got separated. Now I don't know where my mother and brother are. I don't know how to get information. I don't know what to do.” It's the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. Last month, a powerful quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people.
