A massive 6.2 earthquake that jolted Indonesia`s West Sulawesi province has so far left 42 people dead, over 800 others injured and some 15,000 displaced, while it also destroyed houses and infrastructures, a disaster official said here on Saturday.
Those with serious injuries have been treated in hospitals and field hospitals set up after the shallow under-land quake struck Mamuju city and Majene district on Friday, National Disaster Management Agency`s spokesman Raditya Jati told Xinhua news agency.
“Praise be to God, for now OK, but we just felt another aftershock,” said Sukri Efendy, a 26-year-old resident of the area.
There were reports of many people trapped in the rubble of collapsed homes and buildings.
In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl stuck in the wreckage of a house cried out for help and said she heard the sound of other family members also trapped. “Please help me, it hurts,” the girl told rescuers, who replied that they desperately wanted to help her.
The rescuers said an excavator was needed to save the girl and others trapped in collapsed buildings. Other images showed a severed bridge and damaged and flattened houses. TV stations reported the earthquake damaged part of a hospital and patients were moved to an emergency tent outside.