Soldiers dig for boy buried in landslide

Soldiers and police dug through piles of mud today, searching for an eight-year-old boy who was buried when a powerful earthquake killed 52 people in western Indonesia.

Elsewhere, markets reopened in towns on Sumatra island hit by the magnitude-6.3 quake and a strong aftershock. Many people remained too traumatised to return home while others complained of receiving no emergency aid.

Rescuers searching for the missing boy in Bukit Tinggi were using spades because mechanical diggers were not able to access the location of the landslide, which occurred in a steep-sided valley seconds after the quake struck.

The boy’s mother, Rina, said she had little hope her son would still be alive.

“The important thing is I can see him,” said Rina.

Rina was also hit by the landslide, but managed to dig herself out.

Indonesia, which straddles one of the world’s most seismically-violent zones, was hardest hit by the Asian tsunami that killed 160,000 people on Sumatra’s northern tip.

Since then, two other deadly quakes have occurred, as well as landslides, floods and volcanic eruptions.

Tuesday’s quake collapsed scores of homes, offices and government buildings.

Many people are still living outside their damaged homes, fearful to return in case another quake causes them to crumple.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

In addition to the 2004 tsunami, an earthquake killed nearly 5,000 on Java island last year.

Tuesday’s quake was about 660 miles west of Jakarta.