A man walks through the wreckage following the tsunami at a neighborhood in Indonesia. Photo / AP
A man walks through the wreckage following the tsunami at a neighborhood in Indonesia. Photo / AP
The towering wave was about 300 metres from the shore when Adi first saw it hurtling at several hundreds of miles per hour towards his family's beachside home near the Indonesian city of Pula.
Adi, 27, who only uses one name, was starting his pick-up truck while his wife Waheda, 23, was coming towards him carrying their first child, 10-month-old Kanza.
The family had been trying to escape to safety after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked their home. They did not expect that disaster would cruelly strike twice.
"When I saw the wave I was paralysed with fear. It was as high as the coconut trees and I did not know what to do or where to go. I resigned myself to my fate," Adi told The Telegraph.
A car is lifted above the ground following a massive earthquake-induced tsunami at Talise beach in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo / AP
His petrified wife began to run with the baby and Adi braced himself for the impact as he sat inside his car.
"The wave was really powerful. When it hit it caused my car to roll several times. I held onto the steering wheel and the handle above the door," he said.
Miraculously, Adi survived with only a few scratches and was able to pull himself out of the car window to climb to safety on top of the roof. The water had subsided to roughly waist deep and in the chaos he spotted Waheda, managing to pull herself up beside him.
Tragically, Kanza was not there. "My son was ripped from my wife's arms by the force of the wave," he said.
As he recalled the horrific moment, his wife buried her face in his shoulder for comfort. "We feel traumatised," he said.
A police K9 unit continues to search for victims in the wreckage following earthquakes and tsunami. Photo / AP
Kanza was among the more than 1,400 people who have died in the tragedy.
Authorities have set a tentative deadline of Friday to find anyone still trapped under rubble, at which point - a week after this devastating double disaster - the chances of finding survivors will dwindle to almost zero.
Like many hundreds of survivors of the twin disaster that struck the northern coast of Sulawesi island on Friday evening, Adi and Waheda do not have the luxury of mourning in private.
Their home and secondhand electronics shop destroyed, they now live hand to mouth with about 50 others from their home village of Towale in a makeshift camp of tarpaulin tents on a hillside at the entrance of the town of Donggala.
The survivors, whose homes were flattened by the quake, must walk over a mile to a river to get water for washing and cooking but they do not want to leave the high ground in case of another tsunami.
A man walks in front of the ship swept ashore during the tsunami. Photo / AP
To eat, they must flag down aid convoys and beg for some supplies. Motorbike spotters further down the road give them advance warning of the trucks so that they can block their path.
Gde Wiga, a security guard now living in the camp, said they never forced the drivers to give them anything or looted the vehicles. "We just ask for what we need, nothing more," he said.
The small community offers a glimpse into the daily fight for survival as aid struggles to reach victims who have lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.
Government rescue workers are focusing on half a dozen key sites around the ravaged seaside city of Palu - the Hotel Roa-Roa where up to 60 people are still believed buried, a shopping mall, a restaurant and the Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.
Residents react as a body of a tsunami victim is recovered in a village heavily damaged by the tsunami in Palu. Photo / AP
Almost 200,000 people need urgent help, the UN's humanitarian office said, among them tens of thousands of children, with an estimated 66,000 homes destroyed or damaged.
In Geneva, the United Nations expressed frustration at the slow pace of the response.
"There are still large areas of what might be the worst-affected areas that haven't been properly reached, but the teams are pushing, they are doing what they can," Jens Laerke, from the UN's humanitarian office, said late on Tuesday.
The road between the towns of Donggala and Pula is a scene of apocalyptic destruction, with homes, shops, hotels and businesses reduced to ruined shells. Upturned vehicles lie embedded in the rubble, offering a startling reminder of the brutal, indiscriminate force of nature.
Rescuers walk through a neighborhood flattened by the earthquake in Palu. Photo / AP
Along the roadside, children stand solemnly with boxes, appealing to cars to stop and donate to their families.
Arif, a motorbike taxi driver, stood by the rubble of the home where he lived with his wife and five children. Ruined clothes, kitchen utensils and other signs of his once normal family life visible in the wreckage.
