Indonesia to give compensation to earthquake victims: President

Rescuers searched for bodies and survivors in the rubble of buildings that collapsed in an earthquake that killed at least 162 people on Indonesia’s main island of Java

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said on November 22 the government would hand out compensation to victims and their families after an earthquake struck the country’s most populous Province, killing 162.

Jokowi, as the President is known, visited the epicentre of the quake, the town of Cianjur in West Java Province, and ordered rescue teams to prioritise saving people trapped under rubble and to urgently access areas blocked off by landslides.

Rescuers searched for bodies and survivors on November 22 in the rubble of buildings that collapsed in an earthquake that killed at least 162 people on Indonesia’s main island of Java and injured hundreds more, overwhelming hospitals.

Excavators, trucks and other heavy equipment sent overnight reached the hardest-hit city of Cianjur, south of Jakarta. The city, in the country’s most densely populated Province of West Java, was near the epicentre of magnitude 5.6 temblor on Nov. 21 afternoon, which sent terrified residents fleeing into the streets, some covered in blood and debris.

One woman told The Associated Press when the earthquake hit her home in Cianjur, the building started “shaking like it was dancing”.

“I was crying and immediately grabbed my husband and children,” said the woman, who gave her name only as Partinem. The house collapsed shortly after she escaped with her family.

“If I didn’t pull them out we might have also been victims,” she said, gazing over the pile of concrete and timber rubble.