Grief and tears amid the quake rubble

The injured are crowding into hospitals. Picture / Reuters

BANTUL, INDONESIA - In the morning, Salim retrieved the lifeless body of his 3-year-old son, Sihman, from the ruins of their brick and bamboo hut.

In the afternoon, he buried him, digging the grave himself.

As night fell, he searched through the rubble of his former home for scraps of food.

"I have lost everything," he said.

Salim's family lived in Bantul, a semi-rural district just south of the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, in the heartland of the island of Java.

Bantul, a patchwork of villages where farmers grow rice, corn and chillies, was hardest hit by the earthquake that struck the area on Saturday morning. More than 80 per cent of buildings were flattened.

The total death toll stood at more than 5000 last night, with up to 20,000 injured and more than 100,000 left homeless. As rescue teams continued to look for survivors, the international community pledged millions of dollars in aid, and relief agencies sent medical teams and emergency supplies.

Hospitals in Yogyakarta, a gracious and laid-back city that is home to one of Indonesia's oldest royal families, are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Yesterday, as ambulances ferried the dead to the morgues, the injured were treated in emergency wards set up in the open air. Hospitals were desperately short of surgeons.

The Regent of Bantul, Idham Samawi, told the Jakarta Post that local authorities had broken into their own pharmaceutical warehouses because they could not find the keys. "But now all the drugs have been used up," he said.

Most buildings in the city still stand, although many have cracked facades and caved-in roofs. At the 9th-century Prambanan Hindu temple complex, stupas were blasted off and parts of Yogyakarta's centuries-old royal palaces were damaged.

But it is outside the city, to the south and to the east, that the impact of the quake is most visible. The road to Bantul is lined with blue tents and tarpaulins, donated by aid agencies. As rain sheeted down last night, the homeless and bereaved huddled together beneath the shelters.

Power and telephone lines are still down, and clean water is a problem, with all 12 water distribution systems in Bantul either destroyed or not functioning, according to Unicef. Villagers said they were also short of food.

But it is not only material concerns that trouble them. They fear another earthquake. Even those with homes still standing spent Saturday night outdoors. Dozens of aftershocks have fuelled their jitters.

When the locals were jolted from their beds shortly before 6am, many thought Mt Merapi, a nearby volcano that has rumbled for weeks, had erupted. Although they live in a region of intense seismic activity, they had never experienced a quake of that magnitude.

Haunted by memories of the Boxing Day tsunami that devastated Indonesia's Aceh province in 2004, many people feared a tidal wave would roll in from the Indian Ocean, a few miles to the south. They fled north, towards Merapi - unsure whether the sea or the volcano would prove more treacherous. In the event, both were calm, although Merapi continued to blow ominous clouds of gas and ash into the air yesterday.

The volcano's recent activity meant that aid agencies, who were on hand to help residents evacuated from its slopes, already had a presence in the area. Now they find themselves dealing with an emergency that was unforeseen, and on a different scale.

John Budd, of Unicef in Jakarta, said the agency had been geared up for relief operations in the event of Merapi erupting. "We will be able to provide food, tents, collapsible water tanks and health kits," he said.

But tents are in short supply, with 20,000 people who lived in the shadow of the volcano already moved off the mountain to emergency shelters. On the road to Bantul, one village head complained that 33 families were living beneath one large tarpaulin.

Bantul is a heavily populated area, home to factory workers who commute to Yogyakarta, as well as farmers who sell their produce at the city's market.

Most families lived in flimsy dwellings with wooden roofs. When the earth trembled, their houses collapsed. Many of the dead were buried in their beds.

Village after village in the area was laid waste. Bantul is a ruined landscape. Salim, like many in this deeply religious part of Indonesia, interpreted the quake as a manifestation of the wrath of Allah.

He pointed to a series of natural disasters that have affected the country. "We have done something to anger him."

In the village of Jamprit, a man called Poniran told how he dug his 5-year-old daughter, Ellie, out of the rubble of her bedroom. She was alive when he lifted her out but died in his arms while waiting for treatment in an overcrowded hospital, with hundreds of others.

Her last words were "Daddy, Daddy". Poniran said: "I have to start my life from zero again."

These were people who had little. Now they have almost nothing. Yesterday they were scrabbling through the remains of their homes, salvaging what they could.

Budi Wiyana, 63, whose house was destroyed, said: "We're short of everything - clothes, food, water, all are gone. We are poor people, but our lives still matter."

Most of the dead were buried in village graveyards within hours of the disaster, in line with Islamic tradition. The death toll is expected to rise, as more bodies are found.

Volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross, aided by Kopassus special forces troops, searched the wreckage for survivors yesterday.

"We need more heavy equipment and excavators," said one.

The ancient Buddhist temple complex of Borobudur, near Yogyakarta, appears to have survived intact. The biggest Buddhist monument in the world, it is one of Indonesia's biggest tourist attractions, visited by one million people a year.

But the world-renowned 9th-century Prambanan temple complex, which, like Borobudur, is a United Nations world heritage site, was damaged. The quake sent intricate carved reliefs crashing to the ground and destroyed years of restoration work in less than a minute.

- INDEPENDENT