Indonesia Disaster: Disease Fears as More Bodies Found after Tsunami

Local Editor

Rescuers picking through the grim aftermath of Indonesia's quake-tsunami issued a fresh public health warning Saturday as more decaying corpses were unearthed from beneath the ruined city of Palu.

Relatively, more than a thousand people may still be missing in the seaside city on Sulawesi Island, officials said, after the region was hit by a powerful quake and a wall of water, with the official death toll now at 1,571.

Meanwhile, hopes of finding anyone alive a full eight days since the disaster have all but faded, though Indonesian authorities did not officially call off the search for survivors.

For now, there are fears that vast numbers of decomposing bodies could be buried beneath Petobo and Balaroa – two areas virtually wiped off the map – and authorities have warned survivors to steer clear as they brace for more macabre discoveries.

At a massive government housing complex at Balaroa, where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush, soldiers in face masks clambered over the giant mounds of mud, brick and cement.

The troops peeking under collapsed walls and peeling back corrugated sheets do not have to look hard.

Indonesia sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the world's most tectonically active region, and its 260 million people are vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team