|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 3 April 2005 |
 |
|
 |
World |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Thousands hungry, homeless in quake-hit Nias GUNUNGSITOLI, Indonesia, Saturday (Reuters) Aid workers tried on Saturday to reach outlying areas of Indonesia's devastated Nias island where thousands of people are still homeless and hungry more than four days after a huge earthquake. The U.N. has said that 1,300 people may have died in the main town of Gunungsitoli alone, and there are concerns thdeath toll could rise as they reach isolated parts of the island that have been cut off by landslides and damage to roads. "People (aid workers) are moving out of town for the first time in a serious way today," Oxfam official Alex Renton told Reuters by telephone from Gunungsitoli. "Outside town, things are still very unclear." In the town itself, Singapore rescue wokers were on Saturday trying to pull a survivor from the rubble of a wrecked house after he was found by an Indonesian soldier five days after the quake. "He is below the staircase," said Martin Laia, a relative, referring to the man, who he said was in his 40s. Renton estimated that only about 10 percent of the 5,600 sq km (2,100 sq mile) island had been assessed by aid agencies. Reuters correspondents who rode motorbikes from Gunungsitoli on Friday along the road to Teluk Dalam town some 120 km (75 miles) south saw widespread damage to houses, bridges and roads and little sign of aid reaching people. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
