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By CHRIS BRUMMITT
The Canadian Press(CP)
BANTUL, Indonesia (AP-CP) — Tens of thousands camped out for a second night Sunday in streets, cassava fields and the paths between rice paddies as the death toll from Indonesia’s earthquake rose to more than 4,300.
Rattled by hundreds of aftershocks, exhausted and grieving survivors scavenged for food and clothes in the brick, wood and tile rubble of their flattened houses. They pleaded for aid, which — despite worldwide pledges of tens of millions of dollars and planes carrying medicine and food — seemed to be coming too slow.
The first United Nations aid flight arrived Monday carrying water, tents, stoves and cooking sets.
Torrential rain late Sunday added to the misery of some 200,000 people left homeless by Saturday’s 6.3-magnitude quake, most of them living in makeshift shelters of plastic, canvas or cardboard. Thousands of wounded awaited treatment in hospitals overflowing with bloodied patients.
“So far no one from the government has shown any care for us,” said villager Brojo Sukardi. “Please tell people to help us.”
The Social Ministry had earlier said Monday the death toll had reached nearly 5,000 but later revised the figure down to 4,315 after correcting numbers for the hard-hit Klaten district, said Jaswadi, an official at the ministry.
The quake on the island of Java was the fourth destructive temblor to hit Indonesia in the last 17 months, including the one that spawned the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami that killed 230,000 people across Asia, most of them on this Indian Ocean archipelago.
International agencies and countries across Europe and Asia pledged millions of dollars in aid and prepared shipments of tents, blankets, generators, water purification equipment and other supplies.
Canada has pledged $2 million Cdn for relief efforts in the region, of which $500,000 will go to the International Red Cross.
Two diplomats from the Canadian Embassy in Jakarta were on the scene Sunday to begin the job of assessing humanitarian aid requirements.
They will be joined late Monday by Canadian officials from Foreign Affairs, National Defence and the Canadian International Development Agency, who were en route Sunday.
The United States promised $2.5 million US in emergency aid; the European Union granted $3.8 million US. Indonesia said late Sunday it would allocate $107 million US to help rebuild over the next year.
The country also is coping with the bird flu crisis, Islamic militant terror attacks, and the threat of eruption from Mount Merapi. The quake not only raised activity at the rumbling volcano but also damaged the 9th-century Prambanan temple, a UN world heritage site.
The disaster zone covered hundreds of square miles of mostly farming communities to the south of the ancient city of Yogyakarta. Power and telephone service was out Sunday across much of the region. As many as 450 aftershocks followed, the strongest a magnitude 5.2.
The worst devastation was in the Bantul district, which accounted for three-quarters of the deaths. One man dug his five-year-old daughter out of the rubble of her bedroom only to have her die in a hospital awaiting treatment with hundreds of others.
“Her last words were ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” said Poniran, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.
“I have to start my life from zero again.”
In Peni, a hamlet on Bantul’s southern outskirts, 20 residents searched for a neighbour after finding the bodies of his wife and three children. Villagers set up simple clinics despite shortages in medicine and equipment. Women cooked catfish from a nearby pond for dozens of people huddled under a large tent.
The UN World Food Program started distributing emergency food rations Sunday, with three trucks bringing high-energy biscuits to some of the worst-hit districts and two Singapore military cargo planes landing with doctors and medical supplies.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent said at least 200,000 people were left homeless. Most of the dead were buried within hours of the disaster, in line with Islamic tradition.
Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Kim Girtel said that her department had contacted all Canadian citizens known to be in the affected areas and had “confirmed their well-being.”
Officials are keeping an eye out for tourists or others in central Indonesia who may have been in the area, but so far have found none.
The earthquake hit at 5:54 a.m. as most people slept, caving in tile roofs and sending walls crashing down. Survivors screamed as they ran from their homes, some clutching bloodied children and the elderly.
The quake’s epicentre was 80 kilometres south of the volcano, and activity increased soon after the temblor. A large burst spewed hot clouds and sent debris cascading some three kilometres down its western flank. No one was injured because nearby residents had been evacuated.
Officials said the famed 7th-century Borobudur Buddhist temple, one of Indonesia’s famed tourist attractions, was not affected. But Prambanan, a spectacular Hindu temple to the southeast, suffered serious damage, with hundreds of stone carvings and blocks scattered around the ancient site.
It will be closed until archeologists can determine whether the foundation was damaged, Agus Waluyo, head of the Yogyakarta Archaeological Conservation Agency, said Sunday. Close to one million tourists visit the Borobudur and Prambanan temples every year.
Indonesia, the world’s largest island chain, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. It has 76 volcanos, the largest number in the world.