Currently, the death toll is at 384 and counting following a devastating magnitude 7.5 earthquake that hit Indonesia this weekend.
CNN reports that rescue workers are still searching for survivors after the quake hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and triggered a subsequent tsunami. It was on Friday that the quake took place while the tsunami swept away homes on the coastal city of Palu, a locale with a population of 350,000 people.
Currently, more than 540 are being treated at local hospitals while 29 others have been reported missing. According to Sutopo Purwo, spokesman for the Disaster Management Agency, the death toll could climb in the next few days.
"It is not just the people in the large urban areas. There are a lot of people also living in remote communities who are hard to reach" Jan Gelfand, head of the International Red Cross in Indonesia, tells CNN.
Currently, residents are without electricity or communications, amplifying the difficulties of thoroughly assessing the damage in Palu and the nearby city of Donggala. Palu's airport has been closed, forcing rescue workers to make the trek into the damaged city by road. Sulawesi is one of the biggest islands in the world with a drive to the nearest airport being 10 to 12 hours.
At the moment, the death toll includes at least one child and notably a 21-year old air traffic controller, Anthonius Gunawan Agun, who stayed behind in the control tower to ensure that a passenger airplane safely took off after his colleagues evacuated the building when they began to feel the earthquake.
"We felt a deep heartbreak, may God gives Anthonius the best place beside him, along with other victims of Donggala earthquake," said a spokesperson for Air Nav Indonesia, the country's aircraft navigation agency.
Other disastrous results include the escaping of over half of the 560 inmates who were contained in prison in Palu.
"It was very hard for the security guards to stop the inmates from running away as they were so panicked and had to save themselves too,” the prison's warden told state news agency Antara.
