Search effort intensifies after Indonesia quake killed 268

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By ANDI JATMIKO today

CIANJUR, Indonesia (AP) — More rescuers and volunteers were deployed Wednesday in devastated areas on Indonesia’s main island of Java to search for the dead and missing from an earthquake that killed at least 268 people.

With many missing, some remote areas still unreachable and more than 1,000 people injured in the 5.6 magnitude quake, the death toll was likely to rise. Hospitals near the epicenter on the densely populated island were already overwhelmed, and patients hooked up to IV drips lay on stretchers and cots in tents set up outside, awaiting further treatment.

More than 12,000 army personel were deployed Wednesday to increase the strength of search efforts that being carried out by more than 2,000 joint forces of police, the search and rescue agency and volunteers, said Suharyanto, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief.

Television reports showed police, soldiers and other rescue personnel using jackhammers, circular saws and sometimes their bare hands and farm tools, digging desperately in the worst-hit area of Cijendil village where tons of mud, rocks and trees were left from a landslide.



Rescuers help clear up debris from the ruins of a house damaged during Monday's earthquake in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. More rescuers and volunteers were deployed Wednesday in devastated areas on Indonesia's main island of Java to search for the dead and missing from an earthquake that killed hundreds of people. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/indonesia-earthquakes-java-c52bea2ae58ce9d0fcc03505c45120dc?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_04

[Roy Rolling]

1. Makes me wonder

If I can instantaneously know of this tragedy from the other side of the world, what is my responsibility to help?

Or do I just read the story of unfolding life-and-death tragedies for entertainment?

How would I act differently? Just watch a roadside accident and ambulance or jump out and help save life?

[Backseat Driver]

2. There is nothing inherently wrong in being aware of others' challenges in tragedies.

It is the choice of your response that matters, and it can be as simple as a moment of silence for those it impacts, a prayer for relief and comfort of injured and their loved ones, a thought that there was indeed assistance available in the community so far away, a financial donation, however small to put things right, pulling over in case you might be needed to do something useful like directing traffic or making others aware of the situation in their path/journey in the immediacy of the event. Entertainment implies enjoyment, IMHO; it enhances your feelings of pleasure, selfishness, perhaps pity, that it wasn't you, so that's a bad thing. In awareness of an event, you may just momentarily be awakened to your feelings of compassion/empathy/gratitude, and that's a good thing that potentiates the best response one can make at the time. Make a wise choice of response as you are able without shame that it's the wrong one!

[electric_blue68]

3. :'''( Good luck and safety to the searchers