Quake survivor pulled from rubble

GUNUNGSITOLI, Indonesia - Rescuers have pulled out alive an Indonesian man trapped for five days in the rubble of his three-storey shophouse, giving some rare cheer to residents of these islands devastated by tremors.

Singaporean and Mexican rescue workers freed the man on Saturday after digging down to him through chunks of concrete and other debris in a tense rescue operation lasting about seven hours.

"He's alive, he's a survivor. He's not seriously hurt," said an official with the Singapore rescue team.

The 42-year-old ethnic Chinese man, Hendra, was placed on a stretcher and taken to hospital.

"It's a miracle, it's a miracle! I can't believe what is happening in my heart and mind right now," said Omar Flores, 30, a rescuer from Mexico City who was drenched in sweat.

Soldiers had heard a voice calling for help from the rubble in the morning and alerted the foreign rescue teams.

Relatives said the man was buried in the ruins with his wife and two daughters who were presumed killed in the Monday night quake.

"I never believed that he had died even though many people said he had," said his brother, Julianto, sobbing with joy.

Around 1,500 Indonesian soldiers have been digging through the rubble of houses, but rescuers who pulled several survivors from buildings earlier this week had said there was little hope of finding anyone else alive.

The UN has said that 1,300 people may have died in Gunungsitoli alone, and there are concerns the death toll could rise as they reach isolated parts of the island that have been cut off by landslides and damage to roads.

Deaths have also been reported on nearby islands.

As the rescue teams dug towards the survivor on Saturday, workers pulled a male body from the ruins of a house next door to wails of grief from relatives.

Relief workers are trying to reach thousands of people cut off from aid in the area off Sumatra island near Aceh province, where another quake in December triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing nearly 300,000 people along Indian Ocean shores.

"People (aid workers) are moving out of town for the first time in a serious way today," Oxfam official Alex Renton told Reuters by telephone from Gunungsitoli.

"Outside town, things are still very unclear."

Renton estimated that only about 10 per cent of the 5,600 sq km island had been assessed by aid agencies.

AID ARRIVES

Reuters correspondents who rode motorbikes from Gunungsitoli on Friday along the road to Teluk Dalam town some 120 km south saw widespread damage to houses, bridges and roads and little sign of aid reaching people.

Thousands of people are facing food and water shortages because the quake destroyed water mains and markets.

"There is no problem with the amount of food. The problem lies with the distribution," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters after meeting local officials on Nias.

Kalla said the government was sending more ships and helicopters from the mainland and would try to restore the water supply within a week.

Heavy rains on Thursday and early on Friday, and ruined roads have hampered relief and rescue efforts, but increasing amounts of aid personnel and supplies have begun to reach Nias.

An Australian navy ship carrying 60 medical personnel docked in Nias on Saturday morning to help treat hundreds of residents wounded by the magnitude 8.7 quake on Monday night.

"The issue is because of lack of road infrastructure and the lack of ... helicopter support, we are not really sure what is happening in the outlying areas," George McGuire, commander of HMAS Kanimbla, told reporters.

In a sign that some roads could reopen soon to vehicles, late on Friday an earthmoving machine was shifting dirt into large cracks near bridges not far from Gunungsitoli, although it was unclear if it would be safe for cars and trucks to use.

- REUTERS