The mayor of the badly hit district of Padang Pariaman said by telephone that heavy digging machinery was starting to reach some areas hit by landslides, but that survivors desperately needed tents and blankets after losing their homes.
“We are devastated. Eighty percent of houses have caved in, roads are split and cracked,”Mayor Muslim Kasim said.
Testos, an Indonesian Red Cross worker at an aid station in central Padang, said they now had around half what was needed.
“We also need drinking water and clothes because many peoples clothes were burnt in fires,” he said. “We also need medicines to stop infection.”
Fuel was being rationed amid a power outage, water and food were in short supply and villagers dug out the dead with their bare hands.
As the scale of the destruction became clearer, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters in the capital, Jakarta, that the recovery operation would cost at least US$400 million.
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