The Hindu : International : Uncertainty over quake toll

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Thursday, Mar 31, 2005

International

International

Uncertainty over quake toll

JAKARTA, MARCH 30. In the aftermath of the deadly 8.7-magnitude quake that battered Indonesia's north-western islands, counting the dead is proving almost as difficult as it was following the December 26 tsunami.

On Wednesday, local officials and senior Ministers put the toll at anywhere from about 400 to 1,000. However, the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, predicted that the toll could climb to 2,000 — based on reports of the number of buildings destroyed by the quake.

The inexact science of counting the dead in tiny villages on remote islands where power has been knocked out along with much of the communications network is exacerbated by an apparent lack of coordination within Government departments in Jakarta.

Conflicting data

Dr. Eva, a spokesman at the Health Ministry, said a toll being compiled at her office in Jakarta had reached 423, made up of 220 in Nias island's main town of Gunung Sitoli, 100 at the island's second largest town of Teluk Dalam, a further 100 on Simeulue island and one in the coastal town of Sibolga.

``We continue to monitor data from available crisis centres in the affected towns,'' said Dr. Eva, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. In Gunung Sitoli, North Sumatra Governor Rizal Nurdin said an estimated 1,000 people died. It was not immediately clear what he based that number on.

But just a couple of hours later, Agus Mendrofa, the deputy head of Nias district, told the private El-shinta radio station that the number of casualties on the island could reach about 500.

``We have estimated that the figure of the death toll in Nias could reach 500 people,'' Mr. Mendrofa said.

There was no word at all of the fate of about 10,000 people living on a group of tiny islands close to the epicentre of Monday night's quake. The varying numbers are an echo of the chaotic count after the December 26 quake and tsunami.

Even now, more than three months after that catastrophe, estimates of the dead in Indonesia's Aceh province range from 126,390-127,420 and the number of missing is between 93,757-116,368.

The true toll from the tsunami almost certainly will never be known, thousands of bodies were buried in mass graves to prevent them rotting on streets and few people attempted to identify the corpses. Meanwhile, aftershocks continued to rattle parts of Sumatra for the second day today. — AP/PTI

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