Aid groups reach Indonesia quake zone

MEUREUDU, Indonesia — Humanitarian organizations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province Thursday as the local disaster agency called for urgent food supplies and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people.

Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel concentrated their search on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday. But the small number of heavy excavators on the scene meant progress was slow. Humanitarian assessment teams fanned out to other areas of the district.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams used devices that detect mobile phone signals within a 100-yard radius to help guide their efforts as they scoured the rubble. The disaster agency said more than 750 people were injured.

“We have to move faster to search and rescue possible survivors,” said Iskander Ali, a Pidie Jaya official.

Those killed included very young children and the elderly. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but he was resigned to it as “God’s will.”

He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit and said he and his wife pushed their way out through the debris. Another man said he found his 9-year-old daughter alive beneath a broken wall at his neighbor’s house.

Thousands of people are homeless or afraid to return to their houses. Nugroho said more than 11,000 people have been displaced and are staying at shelters and mosques or with relatives. About 10,500 homes were damaged and dozens of mosques and shop houses collapsed.