False alarm after voice heard in quake rubble

RESCUERS rushed back into the rubble yesterday after a woman’s cries for help were reported coming from a collapsed hotel six days after Indonesia’s devastating earthquake — but the search was in vain.

Australian experts used specialised voice detection equipment to scour the remnants of the Ambacang hotel in four different places after a worker said he heard a woman’s voice. They found no signs of life, said team leader John Cowcutt, and demolition of the building’s remnants resumed.

The episode underscored the agony of the families of thousands of people who are missing after last Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude quake collapsed buildings in Padang city and sent landslides crashing down onto villages in the surrounding hills in West Sumatra province.