A five-year-old boy emerges from the rubble of the Indonesia earthquake two days later | Indonesia

Rainfall and the threat of landslides disrupted Indonesian rescue workers Wednesday’s search for survivors of an earthquake that killed 271 people, with an official warning that time is running out for anyone trapped.

As the search continued, rescuers pulled a five-year-old boy from the rubble, who had survived because he was protected by a mattress.

In a video of the rescue released by the local fire department, Azka, who had been trapped for two days, appeared conscious and calm as he was carried to safety.

“[Azka] “His mother passed away,” said his relative, Salman al-Farisi, 22, holding Azka’s hand in a makeshift tent in the hospital parking lot. “The doctor said he was only weak because he was hungry.

“He wants to go home now. He has been asking about his mother.”

Monday’s 5.6-magnitude earthquake caused severe damage in the mountain town of Cianjur about 45 miles (75 kilometers) south of the capital, Jakarta, and 40 people are still missing. Recovery efforts have focused on Koginang, one of the hardest hit areas, where at least one village is believed to have been buried by a landslide.

The head of the search and rescue agency, Henri Alviende, said helicopters were going to drop food and water on two villages that could not be reached by land. He said the chances of anyone stuck under the rubble surviving three days after the earthquake were increasingly slim, and the risk of aftershocks causing more landslides on rain-soaked slopes had delayed his teams.

“Because the earthquake was strong and it was raining, we were afraid of landslides,” he said. “But we have continued the evacuation process now.”

Ay Nurjaneh, 48, said she was trapped under falling concrete for 15 minutes after the earthquake, while sheltering her 4-year-old daughter underneath. They were taking a nap when the earthquake happened.

“I kept screaming for help until my voice ran out,” she said. “My daughter was crying: Mama, it’s dark, I can’t breathe.”

The authorities are bringing in more heavy machinery to clear the landslides. The Disaster Mitigation Agency said about 6,000 rescuers have been dispatched. Officials said there were more than 170 aftershocks, including a 3.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday afternoon.

A staff member at Cianjur Hospital said patients were receiving treatment outside in tents due to fear of aftershocks.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadkin said there was an urgent need to provide additional assistance to patients in quake-affected hospitals. Indonesia is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, regularly recording strong earthquakes offshore where fault lines occur.

Monday’s earthquake was very deadly because it struck a densely populated area at a shallow depth of only 10 km. Officials said poor building standards led to many deaths. Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for earthquake-resistant housing to be included in reconstruction efforts when he visited the disaster area on Tuesday.

Rescuers are still hoping to pull more survivors from the rubble, but they are “running against the clock,” according to Denny Kurniawan, rescue team leader with the Human Initiative, a Jakarta-based NGO.

“We hope to do that [have] He said more miracles. Yesterday we were told that a pregnant woman was inside her house. Our team found her, but we lost her and the baby. It’s a really sad situation.

“The earthquake occurred at a time when mothers and children were at home, and fathers were working in the rice fields. Most of the victims were mothers and children.”

While the scale would normally be expected to cause minor damage to buildings and other structures, experts say proximity to fault lines, shallowness of the earthquake, and inadequate infrastructure that could not withstand earthquakes all contributed to the damage.

Carlo Borba, Indonesia program manager for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), said rescuers were struggling to reach the affected pockets in the mountainous region, some of which were inaccessible by car.

“Government warns of heavy rains. There are likely to be landslides and flash floods in some areas.

He added that about 22,000 families whose homes were badly damaged need emergency tents. “We are looking for 300 families to support at the beginning so that they can build suitable tents,” he said.

He said ADRA would publish information about saving damaged homes, not destroying them. “Once people destroy their destroyed homes, they will need to rely 100% on the government to rebuild it, but that will take time, maybe a year, to get financing.

But the problem is poor construction. earthquakes Do not kill, poor buildings kill.”