Indonesia earthquake: A 5-year-old boy, who had been trapped under the debris of his house for 45 hours, was rescued by Indonesian firefighters on Wednesday.
A massive earthquake of 5.6 magnitude hit Indonesia’s Cianjur town in western Java on Monday. The death toll from the quake has risen to 271, with 151 others missing and some 2,000 injured, as search operations continued.
“Azka (the boy) was rescued at around 10:40 am by a team of firefighters,” Anissa Novrianti, spokeswoman of the National Search and Rescue Agency, said, as reported by Kyodo news agency.
Video footage shared by a volunteer and the agency showed Azka being lifted from the debris of his two-story house in the Kampong Rawa Cina area of Cianjur by the rescuers.
He was immediately comforted by his father and rushed to the hospital, the report said, adding that his mother was found dead Tuesday.
The boy’s grandmother was found dead, lying next to him, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, as reported by Kyodo news agency.
The quake has damaged more than 56,000 houses — over half of them seriously — and displaced over 62,000 people.
On Tuesday, President Joko Widodo instructed his ministers to prioritize evacuations and rescue of survivors buried under rubble by quickly restoring access to areas isolated by landslides.
Earthquakes are common in Indonesia, which sits on the “ring of fire” area of tectonic activity in the Pacific.
