MEUREUDU, Indonesia—Humanitarian organizations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province Thursday as the government promised tons of emergency aid and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people.
Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel concentrated their search on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the magnitude-6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday. Humanitarian assessment teams fanned out to other areas of the district.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams were using devices that detect mobile phone signals within a 100-meter (yard) radius to help guide their efforts as they scoured the rubble, he said. Aceh’s disaster mitigation agency said more than 600 people were injured.
Those killed included very young children and the elderly. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but he was resigned to it as “God’s will.”
He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit. He said he and his wife managed to push their way out through the debris. Another man said he found his 9-year-old daughter alive beneath a broken wall at his neighbor’s house.
Thousands of people are homeless or afraid to return to their houses. Officials in Aceh said more than 8,000 people spent Wednesday night in shelters in Pidie Jaya district alone.
