TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Rescue efforts to retrieve bodies in vain
Dede Kurniati, a resident of Cianjur, West Java, had no way of knowing Wednesday would be the last time she would ever see her 10-year-old son
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
D
ede Kurniati, a resident of Cianjur, West Java, had no way of knowing Wednesday would be the last time she would ever see her 10-year-old son.
Around 2 p.m., her youngest son Muhammad Ridwan Said asked her if he could go with two friends to a new games arcade in a kampung near their home in Cikangkareng village.
An hour later, a powerful earthquake shook the area, causing a cliff overlooking a neighborhood in the village to collapse.
Dede said when she suddenly realized her son was playing in the buried neighborhood, she felt paralyzed.
“I knew it would be nearly impossible to find my son alive,” said the mother of two Thursday.
“But I just wanted to see his body one last time.”
At least 13 people were killed and 47 others remain missing in the remote Cikangkareng village in Cianjur, located around 100 kilometers southeast of Jakarta, after a 73.-magnitude earthquake struck western Java on Wednesday. The epicenter was around 30 kilometers beneath the sea southwest of Tasikmalaya, West Java.
Apudin, an elderly resident of the village, said he was walking near the kampung when he saw the
cliff slide away and bury the neighborhood.
“It [the earthquake] happened very fast, maybe less than three minutes. We were panicking and worrying about saving our lives,” the grandfather of two said.
The quake damaged more than 180 houses in the village, prompting nearly 3,000 people to flee to safety. They are now staying in makeshift shelters.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with the earthquake victims in Cianjur on Thursday after traveling there from his residence in Bogor.
With very little heavy machinery assisting the evacuation team to clear the massive amounts of rock and dirt, the process of searching for survivors and removing bodies has been slow.
“We definitely need a crane to remove the rocks,” said Agus Ibro, a Cianjur resident and coordinator of the village’s crisis center.
“As moving a crane through the kampung is next to impossible, we will have to work manually and with two excavators which are en route.”
As of Thursday evening, a joint evacuation team consisting of Army officers, local Red Cross staff and search and rescue team members had removed 12 bodies.
The rescue team also salvaged a left leg, which was later identified as belonging to Makmur, head of the local community unit (RW) in neighborhood devastated by the landslide.
“Pak Makmur’s wife identified the limb from the motif on the fabric of his shorts,” Agus said.
