Authorities expect the death toll of 832 to dramatically increase due to shortages of medicine and rescue equipment. They have also announced that at least 1,200 inmates had escaped from local prisons.
Volunteers in Indonesian island of Sulawesi were preparing mass graves for over 1,000 people on Monday as the death toll in the earthquake and tsunami-devastated region hit 832. At the same time, authorities in the area warned of multiple mass prison breaks.
President Joko Widodo has opened the door to dozens of international aid groups and NGOs to help reach remote areas that still have not been reached since the twin disasters. Rescue workers have already begun to complain of medicine shortages and a lack of the necessary equipment to reach survivors trapped in collapsed buildings.
As a result, authorities in the city of Palu fear the death toll will skyrocket in the coming days, compounded by fears over disease outbreaks caused by decomposing bodies.
Government officials also said that at least 1,200 inmates have fled three different Sulawesi prisons.
Ministry of Justice official Sri Puguh Utami said inmates had fled from two overcapacity facilities in Palu and another in Donggala, an area near the epicenter of the earthquake.
“I’m sure they escaped because they feared they would be affected by the earthquake. This is for sure a matter of life and death for the prisoners,” she said.
Earthquake survivors in Palu are searching for anything they can salvage from the rubble
Utami said most of the 343 prisoners in Donggala had been jailed for corruption and drugs offenses.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency had complained that due to massive budget cuts, its tsunami warning system has not functioned properly for six years.
“Our funding has been going down every year,” agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
The 7.5 magnitude tremor struck the quake-prone region on Friday, prompting a tsunami that was as high as 6 meters (20 feet) in some places. The devastation has yet to be fully assessed, but footage showed huge swaths of flattened trees and buildings reduced to rubble.
