Text-type: News Report
PARIAMAN (WEST SUMATRA): Their village, Jumanak, bathed in layers of mud, is now a family burial 1. __________ for cousins Alias and Jefri.
'There are no medical supplies, no food, no drinks, no aid groups, no government officials - nothing.'
For four days, Jefri, 29, a motorcycle taxi rider, used his bare 2. __________ to try and claw3. __________ mounds of earth to search for his parents, two sisters, two brothers-in-law 4. ________ their two children - all trapped under a landslide triggered by the earthquake that 5. _________ last Wednesday evening.
He wept and waited for aid, but it came too 6. ________.
'They could have been saved if the 7. _________had come much 8. _________,' he said.
His cousin Alias, 40, managed to pull his parents from the 9. _________ alive. But his younger brother 10. __________ missing.
'The 11. ________ pace in rescue efforts is pushing up the death 12. ________,' said Alias.
They were 13. ___________ the hundreds mourning their loved ones in the five remote 14. _________ villages wiped out by the tremblor.
The authorities have said that three spots - Jumanak, Pulau Air and Lubuk Laweh - will be left as mass graves, as relief work turns 15. ________ rescue to getting aid to 16. ___________.
Officials said the five villages in the hilly Patamuan district of Padang Pariaman regency, some two hours' drive from the capital, Padang, had been 17. _________ in torrents of mud and 19. _________ shaken loose from hillsides by the 7.6-magnitude 20. __________.
The three villages that will be closed 21. __________ as grave sites will not be redeveloped in future, the head of West Sumatra Disaster Relief agency Adi Edwards told reporters over the weekend.
'We don't want 22. _______ generation to be the next victims...Rather than spending so much to 23. __________ dead bodies, the money is better spent to 25. _________ the survivors,' he said.
More than 600 have been reported buried 25. ________ in the landslides in these 26. ___________ mountain villages. The victims included 200 to 300 guests at a wedding party, apparently swept away by the landslide as they ran out of a restaurant.
Blocked roads have 27. _________ efforts by relief teams to reach these remote areas. It was only on Sunday that heavy excavators and basic supplies, including food, started to trickle into the 28. __________ villages in Patamuan where survivors were desperate for 29. ________.
Rescuers who scrambled to clear narrow roads of dirt, boulders and trees to reach the interior, however, found whole villages destroyed and survivors begging for food, water and shelter.
'The excavators are more to retrieve dead bodies than to look for survivors,' said Mr Muhammed Zen, 21, who was volunteering in Patamuan where at least 600 people had been killed.
The 30. ___________pace of transporting aid and rescue equipment sparked widespread complaints among locals who have yet to receive the promised supplies and who were helpless to reach victims trapped beneath the rubble.
Questions have also been raised about government efficiency when it comes to aid distribution. Metro TV yesterday reported that bottlenecks in transporting aid were causing supplies to pile 31. _________ in many local district offices.
Government officials, however, blamed the difficult 32. ________ and narrow, damaged village roads for the problems in transporting heavy equipment. Communication 33. _________ to villages were also been cut off, they said.
The coordinator for West Sumatra's disaster relief, Mr Abdul Gafar, also denied that relief supplies were piling up, explaining that district heads had yet to collect them for distribution.
It was not clear how many people have been displaced, but Indonesia's disaster agency said up to 20,000 buildings had been damaged in the quake.
Meanwhile, the relief efforts continued. Hordes of aid workers from various organisations came loaded with 34. _________ and other basic supplies for villages in the regency.
Singapore-based aid agency Mercy Relief was at Patamuan district and Limo Koto village to evacuate the injured and supply food and drinking water to quake 35. ____________.
Chief executive Hassan Ahmad told The Straits Times: 'We have two vehicles to evacuate the injured to the hospital because many of the villagers have difficulty getting transport.'
Freshly-cooked meals and drinking water will also be provided to refugees daily for the next one week, he said.
'No point sending them instant noodles because there is no drinking water,' he said.
salim@sph.com.sg
ANSWERS
1. ground 2. hands 3. through 4. and 5. struck 6, late 7. aid
8. earlier 9. mud 10. remained 11. slow 12. toll 13. among
14. mountain 15. from 16. survivors 17. engulfed 18. rock
19. quake 20. off 21. our 22. next 23. extricate 24. help
25. alive 26. remote 27. hampered 28. devastated
29. help 30. slow 31. up 32. terrain 33. links
34. food 35. refugees
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