Foreign Rescue Teams Race to Help Indonesia Quake Victims
Foreign emergency rescue teams are racing to reach earthquake devastated areas of Indonesia's Sumatra island, as the death toll continues to rise.
Medical teams, search dogs, backhoes and emergency supplies are already trickling into Sumatra. Rescue operations in and around Padang, the West Sumatran capital with a population of 900,000, have been slowed by power blackouts and a lack of heavy equipment to move massive slabs of collapsed concrete buildings.
Indonesian officials have put the death toll from Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude-quake at 770 people, but warn that it is likely to rise as thousands are still believed to be buried beneath rubble.
Indonesian Health Minister Siti Sadilah Supari has appealed for foreign help in digging out those who are still trapped.
The United States has pledged $300,000 in immediate aid, plus another three million dollars for later.
President Barack Obama said Thursday he was "deeply moved" by the suffering and loss of life after the earthquake.
John Holmes, U.N. humanitarian chief, said there are "many hundreds" of injured and the death toll could top 1,100.
Most of the deaths have been reported in the coastal city of Padang, where at least 500 buildings were toppled by the quake.
Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake along the same fault line caused a massive tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in several countries.
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