The tragic fallout of a fatal earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia has left more than 5,000 missing while the death toll has reached 1,763.
Officials are still trying to confirm how many people are unaccounted for, after the disasters struck Palu and districts in Central Sulawesi on Friday, September 28.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s disaster agency, said officials were trying to confirm the number still missing in several villages decimated in the aftermath of the earthquake.
The 7.5 magnitude quake, which triggered the tsunami, caused loose soil to liquefy which then sucked homes into deep mud that buried the occupants.
However, despite the unknown toll, main searches for those missing will cease on Thursday, October 11.
“Evacuation stops on October 11,” the national disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news briefing.
He used an Indonesian word that applies to the search and retrieval of both living and dead people.
“Victims who have not been found are declared missing,” he said, as he indicated a limited amount of searching might still be undertaken but large-scale searches will end.
Many hundreds of people are still buried in mud and debris in the south of Palu.
In that area, neighbourhoods were obliterated by liquefaction.
Desperate relatives have been seeking help to find loved ones.
Rescuers removed 34 bodies from one place on Saturday.
The majority of the dead have been found in Palu, the region’s main urban centre.
Figures for more remote areas are slowly being received.
Mr Nugroho said the debris would be removed from those places before they would be turned into public spaces like parks and sports venues.
“We don’t want the community to be relocated to such dangerous places,” he said.
On Sunday, many smartly dressed Christians visited Palu for sermons, while also hoping for answers to the tragedy inflicted upon them.
Protestants, Catholics and Charismatics make up about 10 percent of the population of Palu.
Lucky Malonda, the pastor at a protestant church in Palu, says the intensity of the disaster had taken even scientists by surprise and called it the will of God.
On Saturday it was reported that the Indonesian government is considering turning some of the earthquake and tsunami-devastated areas into mass graves.
-Agencies
