Indonesia earthquake: Many schoolchildren killed as toll soars to 268

Rescuers say that many of the people killed and hurt in a big earthquake on the island of Java in Indonesia were children, as the death toll rises to 268.

Aprizal Mulyadi, who is 14 years old, was at school when the earthquake hit. He said, “The room collapsed and my legs were buried under the rubble.”

He said that his friend Zulfikar pulled him to safety. Zulfikar later died after getting himself stuck.

Officials say that more than 1,000 people were hurt.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said in its most recent report on Tuesday that 151 people were still missing.

It also said that 22,000 homes had been damaged and that more than 58,000 people had taken shelter in different places in the area.

Monday, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit a mountainous area. It caused landslides that buried whole villages near the town of Cianjur in West Java.

When walls and roofs fell in, people were crushed or trapped. “Everything happened so quickly,” Aprizal told AFP.

A person from the National Search and Rescue Agency also said that many of the people who died were young.

Henri Alfiandi said, “Most of the people who died were children because they were still in school at 1 p.m.”

The earthquake hit at a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles). It was followed by dozens of aftershocks, which caused more damage when poorly built homes fell down.

In the village of Cibereum, a family was trying to find the body of their oldest son, a 28-year-old man who had been crushed when the other floors of his home fell on him.

Rescuers worked hard to sort through the debris.

“We have to dig through the concrete that crushed the victim on the second floor. But the body has been seen, “Sergeant Payakun told the BBC that a military official said this.

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