Powerful earthquake rocks Indonesia, thousands killed

It was the nation’s worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami and triggered fears that a nearby volcano would erupt. The magnitude-6.3 quake struck at 5.54 am near the famed Borobudur temple complex as many people were sleeping, caving in roofs and sending concrete walls crashing down.

Thousands were wounded.

Survivors screamed as they ran from their homes, some clutching bloodied children and the elderly.

The worst devastation was in the town of Bantul, where 80 percent of the homes were destroyed and more than 2,000 people killed.

Residents started digging mass graves almost immediately, family members sobbing and reading the Quran beside rows of corpses awaiting burial.

As night fell across the disaster zone — stretching across hundreds of square kilometres of mostly farming communities in densely populated Yogyakarta province — tens of thousands of people prepared to sleep on streets, in rice fields, and in backyards, fearful of aftershocks.

Power was out across much of the region, adding to their terror. After spending hours digging in vain through the smouldering debris, many said they would have to give up their search for relatives or friends until morning.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoy-ono ordered the army to help evacuate victims and arrived yesterday afternoon with a team of Cabinet ministers to oversee rescue operations, telling people “at a time like this we have to unite.” He slept in a tent camp with survivors.

It was the most recent in a series of disasters to strike Indonesia — from the tsunami that ravaged Aceh province, to a widening bird flu outbreak, to the threat of volcanic eruption from nearby Mount Merapi.

At least 3,505 were killed in the quake, command post officials from each of the affected districts told The Associated Press, two-thirds of the fatalities in devastated Bantul.