<div style="text-align: justify; "><b><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Rescuers on Tuesday struggled to find more bodies from the rubble of homes and buildings toppled by an earthquake that killed at least 162 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s main island of Java.</span><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">More heavy equipment reached the hardest-hit city of Cianjur in the country’s most densely populated province of West Java, where the magnitude 5.6 land-based quake struck Monday afternoon. Terrified residents fled into the street, some covered in blood and debris.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Damaged roads and bridges, power blackouts and lack of heavy equipment previously hampered Indonesia’s rescuers after the quake set off a landslide that blocked streets and buried several houses and motorists.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Power supplies and phone communications have begun to improve in the quake-hit areas on Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many of the dead were public school students who had finished their classes for the day and were taking extra lessons at Islamic schools when the buildings collapsed, West Java Gov. Ridwan Kamil said as he announced the latest death toll in the remote, rural area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hospitals were overwhelmed by injured people, and the toll was expected to rise. No estimates were immediately available because of the area's far-flung, rural population, but many structures collapsed, and residents and emergency workers braced for grim news.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Operations were focused on about a dozen locations in Cianjur, where people are still believed trapped, said Endra Atmawidjaja, the Public Works and Housing spokesperson.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We are racing with time to rescue people,” Atmawidjaja said, adding that seven excavators and 10 large trucks have been deployed from neighboring Bandung and Bogor cities to continue clearing trees and soils that blocked roads linking Cianjur and Cipanas towns.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cargo trucks carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies from the capital, Jakarta, were arriving early Tuesday for distribution in temporary shelters. Still, thousands spent the night in the open fearing aftershocks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Buildings were completely flattened," said Dwi Sarmadi, who works for an Islamic educational foundation in a neighboring district.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roughly 175,000 people live in the town of Cianjur, part of a mountainous district of the same name with more than 2.5 million people. Known for their piety, the people of Cianjur live mostly in towns of one- and two-story buildings and in smaller homes in the surrounding countryside.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kamil said that more than 13,000 people whose homes were heavily damaged were taken to evacuation centers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Emergency workers treated the injured on stretchers and blankets outside hospitals, on terraces and in parking lots. The injured, including children, were given oxygen masks and IV lines. Some were resuscitated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hundreds of people gathered outside the Cianjur regional hospital building, waiting for treatment</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I was working inside my office building. The building was not damaged, but as the quake shook very strongly, many things fell. My leg was hit by heavy stuff,” Sarmadi said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sarmadi was waiting near a tent outside the hospital after some overwhelmed clinics were unable to see him. Many people were coming in worse shape.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I really hope they can handle me soon,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hasan, a construction worker who, like many Indonesians, uses one name, is also one of the survivors that is being taken to the hospital.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I fainted. It was very strong," said Hasan. “I saw my friends running to escape from the building. But it was too late to get out and I was hit by the wall.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magnitude 5.6 quake was at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) below the Earth's surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It also caused panic in the greater Jakarta area, about a three hour-drive away, where high-rises swayed and some people evacuated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In many homes in Cianjur, chunks of concrete and roof tiles fell inside bedrooms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shopkeeper Dewi Risma was working with customers when the quake hit, and she ran for the exit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The vehicles on the road stopped because the quake was very strong," she said. "I felt it shook three times, but the first one was the strongest one for around 10 seconds. The roof of the shop next to the store I work in had collapsed, and people said two had been hit.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency recorded at least 25 aftershocks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The country of more than 270 million people is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin known as the “Ring of Fire.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A powerful Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia. AP/UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>