Indonesian rescuers plead for equipment

An Indonesian policeman stands in front of the ruins of Ambacang hotel as the rubble is searched for victims in the Sumatran city of Padang yesterday. Inset photo shows Ratna Kurnia Sari, the lucky Indonesian woman who was rescued Friday, being taken out from the rubble of a collapsed building in the Sumatran city. Photo: AFP

Rescuers on the ground on the quake-ravaged Indonesian island of Sumatra said they lacked basic equipment and sniffer dogs yesterday as governments around the world pledged assistance.
As foreign rescue teams began trickling into Padang city to help pull survivors from the wreckage, those who had been struggling through the rubble since Wednesday's quake said they were still desperately short of equipment.
"We need urgently electric cutters and medium-sized excavators to remove the debris," Red Cross official Febi Dwirahmadi told AFP at the site of a collapsed school.
Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari appealed for foreign help in digging out thousands believed trapped on Sumatra's western coast from the 7.6-magnitude quake and a series of powerful aftershocks.
The official government toll from the disaster is 777 dead, while the UN put the figure at 1,100. Those numbers are expected to rise.
"We don't have proper equipment. We don't even have dogs," said Suryadi Soedarmo, a surgeon from an emergency ambulance service in the capital Jakarta, who arrived with 10 people trained by US experts on how to enter collapsed structures.
"The command and control is also bad. It will jeopardise our rescue efforts," he told AFP.
The United States pledged 300,000 dollars in immediate aid, plus another three million dollars, as US President Barack Obama said he was "deeply moved" by the huge earthquake in the country where he spent his childhood.
"I know that the Indonesian people are strong and resilient and have the heart to overcome this challenge," Obama said.
A Swiss team of about 120 rescue workers was already on the ground Friday, bringing a dozen much-needed sniffer dogs which are seen as vital for locating survivors.
"Our team will operate at 4:00 pm (0600 GMT). We're here now for reconnaissance purposes. We're taking notes of the damage," the deputy head of the team Matthias Pfister said.
Efforts to organise a full-scale rescue operation were also being hampered by blocked roads, broken power lines, and patchy communication networks. Some areas remained inaccessible to emergency services.
"From the aerial assessments carried out yesterday, the feedback is, yes Padang city and environs are bad, but once you go outside into the surrounding rural areas, the situation is very seriously grave," said Christine South of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society.
"There was talk of complete devastation of some villages, 100 percent devastation, and 50 percent in others," South, the federation's operations coordinator for Indonesia, told journalists in Geneva.
Oxfam's local humanitarian director, Sebastien Fesneau, said it was difficult to gauge the full scale of the disaster.
"Not knowing the extent is our biggest challenge. Some are comparing this with the Yogyakarta earthquake in 2006. There were more than 20,000 people injured and 300,000 families affected," he said.
"In some areas it seems that 80 percent of homes have been damaged. In others it looks to be 40 percent."
Among the major contributors:
-- The European Union pledged three million euros (4.3 million dollars).
-- China offered 500,000 dollars.
-- Britain and Australia, which have 60 people unaccounted for in the quake, both pledged firefighters and search and rescue workers.
-- Germany pledged three million dollars in addition to search-and-rescue resources and water purification plants.
-- Japan dispatched a rescue team of 60 people and a medical team of 23.
-- Singapore pledged 50,000 dollars worth of emergency relief supplies and dispatched 42-personnel.
-- Norway pledged 2.4 million euros (3.5 million dollars)
Russia plans to send medical personnel as well as three vehicles fitted with rescue equipment, Indonesian state news agency Antara said.
Indonesia's government has approved 26 million dollars in relief and said it has sent tonnes of medicine, tents, blankets and food aid as well as hundreds of medical specialists.