Java quake: death toll surpasses 4,000; rains fall on survivors without food or medicine
While the death toll climbs relentlessly, those spared by the quake are facing ever more hardships. There are thousands of wounded people, with broken limbs, left without shelter in the rain.
Yogyakarta (AsiaNews) A sense of abandonment and despair is growing among survivors in Java: nearly 48 hours after the earthquake, thousands of people spared by the tremor have not received food or water all day, as they sit under torrential rain pouring since this morning. Meanwhile, the Ministry for Social Activities has updated information about the death toll: more than 4,000 between the special region of Yogyakarta and Bantul (4,611); in Klaten regency alone, in the province of central Java, there were 1,542 victims.
Heavy rain has been falling in Yogyakarta since before dawn. Francis Xavier Supriyono of Wedi said this has added to the desperation of people left without food and medicine. Thousands of injured people, with broken legs and arms, are lying outside, under the rain. Hospitals are overflowing and there are not enough medical personnel.
Talking to AsiaNews late this evening, he said: "The whole region, Wedi, Gantiwarno, Mawen, Teluk and Jabung, is without electricity. All of us, together with the wounded and their relatives, are camping outside. We feel somewhat desperate because we have received nothing to eat, not even someone to tend to us."
Supriyono said many villages in the area had been practically reduced to rubble, razed to the ground, with heaps of victims under the debris.
Thousands of survivors and injured people in Bantul are suffering the same fate. Here, the rains started in the afternoon, and these people too have not had any food distribution. "The last time we ate was last night," said Winardi, a resident. "Many of us have only what we were wearing at the time of the quake".
The medical staff of the Indonesian Navy has launched an urgent appeal for the collection of emergency medical supplies and surgical instruments.
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