Indonesia earthquake: Many schoolchildren killed as toll soars to 268on November 22, 2022 at 10:54 am

Many of those killed and injured in a major earthquake on the Indonesian island of Java were children who were at school when it hit, rescuers say.

Aprizal Mulyadi, 14, said he was trapped after “the room collapsed and my legs were buried under the rubble”.

He said he was pulled to safety by his friend Zulfikar, who then later died after himself becoming trapped.

Search teams are scrambling to find survivors after more than 100 people died and thousands were left homeless.

The 5.6 magnitude quake struck a mountainous region on Monday, causing landslides that buried entire villages near the West Java town of Cianjur.

Victims were crushed or trapped after walls and roofs caved in. “It all happened so fast,” Aprizal told AFP news agency.

A representative of the National Search and Rescue Agency also confirmed that many of the dead were young people.

“Most of the casualties are children because at 1pm, they were still at school,” said Henri Alfiandi.

The earthquake, which struck at a shallow 10km depth, was followed by dozens of aftershocks which caused more damage to the area where poorly built homes quickly collapsed.

In the village of Cibereum, a family was trying to retrieve the body of their eldest son – a 28-year-old man who had been crushed to death when the other levels of the home fell on him.

Rescuers struggled to sift the rubble.

“We have to dig through the concrete of the second floor that crushed the victim. But we have seen the body,” a military official, First Sergeant Payakun told the BBC.

Authorities say at least 2,200 homes have been flattened and more than 13,000 people evacuated.

President Joko Widodo visited the remote disaster zone on Tuesday where he was pictured with responders.

“My instruction is to prioritise evacuating victims that are still trapped under rubble,” he said.

Authorities have deployed hundreds of police and other rescuers to region to help the rescue effort.

Mr Jokowi also pledged emergency resources and compensation to affected communities.

Indonesia’s national disaster response agency, the BNPB, earlier on Tuesday said the number of confirmed deaths had risen to 103 with 31 people missing. This number is expected to grow, they have warned.

Earlier, the region’s governor Ridwan Kamil had tweeted that 162 people had died and at least 300 were injured – however that figure could not yet be verified by the national agency.

Earthquakes are common in Indonesia, which sits on the “ring of fire” area of tectonic activity in the Pacific.

The country has a history of devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, with more than 2,000 people killed in a 2018 earthquake on the island of Sulawesi.

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