Islanders scramble for aid after quake

SURVIVORS combed the rubble of buildings for loved ones on Indonesia's earthquake-devastated Nias island yesterday as reports emerged of hundreds of additional deaths on a nearby island group.

On Nias, where as many as 2,000 people are feared to have died, survivors pleaded for help and some, driven by hunger, looted rice from a government store.

"Please sir, help us, we are starving," said a man in Gunungsitoli, the main town on Nias, as dozens of people looted the store.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said many people were still trapped beneath the rubble.

"It is estimated more than 1,000, or between 1,000 to 2,000, are dead, because there are still many people under the wreckage of the buildings. Also there are several small islands we are still evaluating," he told reporters in capital Jakarta.

An Indonesian disaster official said about 200-300 people died on the isolated Banyak island group just north of Nias.

"But we have not received further information about the homeless and wounded," Nerli Sulitiani, an official with the national disaster agency, said.

Monday's magnitude 8.7 earthquake devastated a region that escaped major damage in the December 26 quake and tsunami disaster which left nearly 300,000 dead or missing along Indian Ocean shores. The epicentre of Monday's quake was about 100 miles southeast of the earlier one.

Large parts of Nias, famed as a surfing paradise, have been damaged and much of Gunungsitoli has been flattened. Rescue efforts have been hampered by a fuel shortage and poor weather.

Survivors used tools and bare hands to dig for loved ones. "I saw her breathing this morning," said Ramadin, trying to shatter a block of concrete with a crowbar to save his aunt.

One man was pulled out from the rubble of his home by French firefighters, ending a 40-hour ordeal without food or water.

Sanotona Halawa, 48, said three of his children were trapped under the rubble of his home. The body of his 20-year-old son, Yurisman, could be seen through gaps in the concrete.

"During the tragedy, he ran upstairs followed by his brother and sister (thinking a tsunami was coming)," Halwa said.

Fears of another tsunami have since subsided and survivors focused on finding life's essentials. Officials said logistical problems were making it hard to help survivors on Nias, about 850 miles northwest of Jakarta.

"It is like the situation in December. There is no logistical support like fuel," said Rizal Nurdin, governor of North Sumatra province.