Death toll in Indonesia’s twin quake-tsunami disaster rises to 1,407

The death toll has increased to 1,407, according to Indonesia’s disaster agency. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesperson for the national disaster agency, said on Wednesday 519 bodies have been buried as rescue workers scrambled to locate survivors around the ravaged city of Palu.

Underlining the growing sense of urgency, Indonesian President Joko Widodo made his second visit to the disaster zone on Wednesday, putting on an orange hard hat to talk to rescue workers at a collapsed Palu hotel.

“What I’ve observed after returning now is heavy equipment has arrived, logistics have started to arrive although it’s not at maximum yet, fuel has partly arrived,” Widodo told reporters.

The president called for reinforcements in the search for victims, after inspecting what he called an “evacuation” effort at the Hotel Roa Roa, where he said some 30 people lay buried in the ruins.

“We’ll continue this process so all the victims can be retrieved,” he said.

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Rescue workers were scrambling on Wednesday to locate survivors around the ravaged seaside city of Palu, with officials saying they are “racing against time” to find anyone alive. 

Rescuers were focusing on half a dozen key sites around Palu – the Hotel Roa-Roa where up to 60 people are still believed buried, a shopping mall, a restaurant and the Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.

Authorities set a tentative deadline of Friday to find anyone still trapped under the rubble, at which point, the chances of finding survivors will dwindle to almost zero.

At Palu’s stricken airport, hundreds of victims were waiting to board Indonesian military transport planes to be evacuated to Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province. The injured and those with children received priority seating on the Hercules C-130 aircraft.

“The evacuation was orderly and there was no panic. But they obviously looked tired and stressed out,” Al Jazeera’s Ted Regencia reported from the scene.