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Death toll rises in Indonesian earthquake, Tsunami

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Death toll rises in Indonesian earthquake, Tsunami

Death toll in Indonesian earthquake and Tsunami disasters have risen to nearly 2000, but authorities fear it may be as high as 5000.

According to an official, nearly 2000 bodies have been recovered but there are fears that the toll will significantly increase as thousands are still unaccounted for in Palu, on the Sulawesi Island, where entire suburbs were wiped out.

A local military spokesman, M. Thohir, said death toll in Palu has reached 1,944.

“That number is expected to rise because we have not received orders to halt the search for bodies,” Thohir, a member of the government’s official Palu quake taskforce, told AFP on Monday.

Authorities have said as many as 5,000 are believed missing in two hard-hit areas since the September 28 disaster — indicating far more may have perished than the current toll.

Hopes of finding anyone alive have faded and the search for survivors amid the wreckage has turned to gathering and accounting for the dead.

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According to him, the official search for the unaccounted would continue until October 11 at which point they would be listed as missing, presumed dead.

The government has also said it will declare those communities flattened in Palu as mass graves and leave them untouched.

Indonesia sits along the world’s most tectonically active region, and its 260 million people are vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

 

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