6-year-old boy trapped under rubble in Indonesia rescued

Jakarta, Indonesia () — A six-year-old boy was pulled alive from the remains of a house on Wednesday after surviving more than two days under the rubble, giving hope to those who are waiting for news from their loved ones after the strong earthquake that shook a very populated in the Indonesian province of West Java.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said rescuers saved Azka Maulana Malik in Nagrak village, Cugenang subdistrict, Cianjur regency. Images showed the moment he was found by a rescue team.

The boy was discovered next to his grandmother’s body, the agency said. Azka is being treated at Cianjur hospital, according to local media reports. Rescuers had previously recovered the bodies of his parents, the agency added.

The 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck the Cianjur region of West Java at around 1:21 p.m. local time Monday at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). English), and caused the collapse of buildings while classes were being taught.

The number of fatalities from the earthquake has risen to 271, the head of the BNPB, Major General Suharyanto, declared on Wednesday at a press conference. More than a third of the confirmed deaths are children, he said.

Some 2,043 people were injured and 61,800 have been displaced, it added. Forty people are still missing.

Suharyanto said 56,320 houses were damaged, more than a third of them severely. Other damaged buildings are 31 schools, 124 places of worship and three health facilities.

The agency has built 14 shelters with facilities for the displaced, Suharyanto said. Victims are expected to leave their temporary tents and move to these main shelters, he said.

According to Suharyanto, the BNPB has deployed more than 6,000 rescuers for search and rescue operations.

A villager looks at damaged houses in Cianjur on November 22, 2022. (Credit: Aditya Aji/AFP/Getty Images)

The scale of the death and destruction caused by the quake became increasingly apparent on Tuesday, after discrepancies in the number of casualties reported by authorities.

The photos showed buildings reduced to rubble, with bricks and broken metal scraps littering the streets.

“There were many incidents at various Islamic schools,” West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil told reporters on Monday, noting that many of those killed were children.

Villagers salvage items from damaged houses after the magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Cianjur on November 22, 2022. (Credit: Aditya Aji/AFP/Getty Images)

The strong movements forced children to flee their classrooms, according to the aid organization Save the Children, which said more than 50 schools had been affected.

Mia Saharosa, a teacher at one of the schools, said the quake “came as a shock to all of us,” according to the organization.

“We all gathered in the field, the children were terrified and crying, worried about their families at home,” Saharosa said. “We hugged each other, encouraged each other and kept praying.”

Cianjur municipal agents evacuate an injured colleague after the earthquake. (Credit: Antara Photo/Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency/Reuters)

Herman Suherman, a Cianjur government official, told the media that some residents were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The Metro TV news channel showed what appeared to be hundreds of victims being treated in a hospital parking lot.

Television images showed residents gathered outside buildings almost completely reduced to rubble, according to Reuters.

Visiting quake-hit areas Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the government would provide compensation of up to about $3,200 to each owner of the most damaged homes.

The president added that the houses should be rebuilt as earthquake-resistant buildings.

A resident nicknamed Muchlis said he felt “a huge tremor” and the walls and ceiling of his office were damaged.

“I was very surprised. I was worried that there would be another earthquake,” he told Metro TV.

Indonesia’s meteorological office, the BMKG, warned of the danger of landslides, especially in case of heavy rain, as 25 aftershocks were recorded in the first two hours after the quake.

Workers inspect a school damaged by the earthquake in Cianjur, West Java. Credit: BASARNAS/AP

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin offered his “deepest condolences” following the loss of life while speaking at the ASEAN multilateral meeting in Cambodia on Tuesday.

Indonesia sits on the “Ring of Fire,” a strip around the Pacific Ocean that is subject to frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. It is one of the most seismically active areas on the planet and stretches from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific to California and South America on the other.

In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the island of Sumatra in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that affected 14 countries and killed 226,000 people along the Indian Ocean coast, more than half of them in Indonesia.

— With additional information from Reuters.