<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>More rescuers and volunteers were deployed Wednesday in devastated areas on Indonesia’s main island of Java to search for the dead and missing from an earthquake that killed at least 268 people.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">With many missing, some remote areas still unreachable and more than 1,000 people injured in the 5.6 magnitude quake, the death toll was likely to rise. Hospitals near the epicenter on the densely populated island were already overwhelmed, and patients hooked up to IV drips lay on stretchers and cots in tents set up outside, awaiting further treatment.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">More than 12,000 army personel were deployed Wednesday to increase the strength of search efforts that being carried out by more than 2,000 joint forces of police, the search and rescue agency and volunteers, said Suharyanto, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Television reports showed police, soldiers and other rescue personnel using jackhammers, circular saws and sometimes their bare hands and farm tools, digging desperately in the worst-hit area of Cijendil village where tons of mud, rocks and trees were left from a landslide.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said aid was reaching thousands of people left homeless who fled to temporary shelters where supplies can be distributed only by foot over the rough terrain.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">In several hard-hit areas, water as well as food and medical supplies were being distributed from trucks, and authorities have deployed military personnel carrying food, medicine, blankets, field tents and water tankers.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Volunteers and rescue personnel erected more temporary shelters for those left homeless in several villages of Cianjur district.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Most were barely protected by makeshift shelters that were lashed by heavy monsoon downpours. Only a few were lucky to be protected by tarpaulin-covered tents. They said they were running low on food, blankets and other aid, as emergency supplies were rushed to the region.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">He said more than 58,000 survivors were moved to shelters and more than 1,000 people were injured, with nearly 600 of them still receiving treatment for serious injuries.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">He said rescuers had recovered 268 bodies from collapsed houses and landslides that triggered by the earthquake, and at least 151 still reported missing. But not all of the dead have been identified, so it’s possible some the bodies pulled from the rubble are of people on the missing list.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Rescue operations were focused on about a dozen villages in Cianjur, where people are still believed trapped, Suharyanto said.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">In a virtual news conference on Tuesday evening, Suharyanto said that more than 22,000 houses in Cianjur were damaged and the agency was still collecting data on damaged houses and buildings in the town.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Indonesia is frequently hit by earthquakes, many much stronger than Monday’s whose magnitude would typically be expected to cause light damage. But the area is densely populated, and experts said the shallowness of the quake and inadequate infrastructure contributed to the severe damage, including caved-in roofs and large piles of bricks, concrete, and corrugated metal.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The quake was centered on the rural, mountainous Cianjur district, where one woman said her home started “shaking like it was dancing.”</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“I was crying and immediately grabbed my husband and children,” said Partinem, who goes by only one name. The house collapsed shortly after she escaped with her family.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“If I didn’t pull them out, we might have also been victims,” she said, gazing over the pile of broken concrete and timber.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">More than 2.5 million people live in Cianjur district, including about 175,000 in the main town of the same name.</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.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur on Tuesday and pledged to rebuild infrastructure, including the main bridge connecting Cianjur to other cities, and to provide government assistance up to 50 million rupiah ($3,180) to each resident whose house was damaged.</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 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a magnitude-6.2 earthquake killed more than 100 people in West Sulawesi province.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">In 2004, an earthquake measuring at least 9.1 magnitude struck west of Indonesia and set off an Indian Ocean tsunami in a disaster that killed more than 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>