Updated
It seems almost everyone wants to get in or out of Palu.
Humanitarian aid is beginning to flow steadily into the city and surrounds, after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami killed at least 1,400 people, but now many victims are fleeing en masse.
Hospitals have been overwhelmed, looting has been rife and disease is a growing concern.
As such, many of Palu’s recent homeless see no option but to leave.
At Palu airport, hundreds of evacuees, most with only the clothes on their backs, huddle with their children in the shade, or stand up against chain metal fences in the blazing sun, patiently waiting for their turn to leave.
After being called, they are herded by armed Indonesian soldiers up the ramps of military planes, before taking off for safety.
‘Chased by moving land’
On the edge of the tarmac, lined up on stretchers, more than a dozen badly injured patients wait for medical evacuation.
Every one carries a terrifying story of escape.
Ibu Haji Asnah, nursing a broken shoulder and leg, described being “chased by the moving land” as she was walking home from the markets.
“All the buildings were crushed. I was dragged into the sewer. And then squeezed by the land,” she said.
Lying nearby, with a crushed foot, head wound and cuts all over his back is Franky Rampangilei.
He was riding his motorbike when the quake struck and says the road before him started to behave like the waves in an ocean.
“The land went up and down … and then I hit a car right in front of me,” he said.
He woke up in the hospital, only to find the people who’d taken him there had also robbed him.
“I had a motorbike with 12 million rupiah ($1,114) under my seat. It’s gone along with the motorbike.”
Criminals take over remains of Donggala
In the half-collapsed departure hall, we’re approached by mother Lisa Karyono with wide eyes and two small children.
When the quake and tsunami struck their fishing town of Donggala, they fled into the mountains, where they’ve been hiding out ever since.
She says after buildings were reduced to ruins by the quake and then washed away by the tsunami, criminals took over what was left of the town.
“My mother’s shop was looted. Everything is gone,” she said.
She wants us to tell her story to the world.
By chance, we bump into Indonesia’s National Chief of Police, Tito Karnavian, who’s just arrived by helicopter, and ask him about the woman’s claims.
“No no no. I just went over there [to Dongalla]. I just flew over there. There’s no problem there. The problem was in Palu, three days after the quake,” he said.
The nearby ports have also been busy, shipping victims to other parts of the island and further abroad.
Traffic jam as residents flee, supplies come in
Those who have access to vehicles are leaving the region by the thousands, packed into family cars, loaded up on motorbikes, even jammed into delivery trucks.
At the same time, thousands more vehicles are flooding into Palu, to pick up loved ones, or deliver much-needed supplies.
Our journey into Palu from the town of Poso takes us 15 hours. It’s normally a leisurely four-hour trip.
All along the way, huge piles of dirt and, at times, rocks as big as our car sit ominously at the bottom of landslides caused by ongoing aftershocks.
One car lies half buried, having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
At one point, the road was blocked for three hours in both directions while a bulldozer went to work, pushing tonnes of rocks, soil and broken trees down the mountainside.
When a path finally opened up, both sides of the blockage rushed to get through, causing another one-hour delay.
As we crawled along the mountain top, staring at the faces of those getting out of Palu, barely a car went by without a friendly smile and “hello, mister”.
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, earthquake, indonesia
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