With so much of the city in ruins, the toll is expected to rise dramatically. 'We've heard it so many times: `Ambulance. Body bag. Ambulance. Body bag. We need more oxygen, more masks,' ' said Aim Zein, whose indie FM radio station PRONEWS 90 that he runs from home is one of the few remaining sources of information for many of Padang's 900,000 residents and is helping coordinate the relief operation. 'It's always the same story and the same items,' Zein said. Rescue efforts after Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake were hampered by a lack of heavy digging equipment needed to pry apart huge slabs of concrete that fell atop each other as buildings collapsed. About 3,000 people may still be trapped beneath the rubble, and several times that number have been hospitalized, officials said. Poor communications has limited damage reports from Padang's outlying areas, where damage also is extensive and death tolls are expected to rise. A quake-triggered landslide has blocked the road to the southern port city of Bungus, severely cutting fuel supplies to the region and prompting residents to swarm gas stations for the trickle that remains available. But Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 and the capital of West Sumatra province, may have been the hardest-hit. Dozens of buildings around the city, including several government facilities, lie in heaps of rubble. Only despair was in the air at Gedung Pelayanan Hospital on Friday night. The hospital was partially damaged in the quake, leaving patients hooked to IVs to be cared for under tents in the parking lot. The odor from bodies kept in a makeshift morgue up the road caused many in the crowd to cover their noses. 'You can see the condition of the hospital -- we have to put the patients outside once they stabilize,' said Meta Silvia, a 22-year-old medical student who was tending to the wounded. She said surgery on the most seriously injured was being done inside; the outdoor tents used for post-operative care. 'It's the best we can do right now,' she said. There were some near-miracles. Student Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 19, was pulled alive from the rubble of her college, the Foreign Language School of Prayoga, on Friday, about 40 hours after the quake hit. But the chances of finding people alive diminished with each passing hour. The destruction of the Prayoga Language school several blocks away left little doubt about the fate of those inside when the quake struck. The walls of the building gave way entirely, the heavy-tiled roof now resting only a few feet off the ground on a crumbled pile of bricks. Surviving students, parents and friends walked amid the wreckage, occasionally probing at the rubble as they held a vigil for the victims. A similar scene took place across town at the now-crumbled Ambacang Hotel -- a colonial-style watering hole with a trendy late-night disco. Observers said hundreds of people were missing, and some in the crowd that gathered to watch the work of canine rescue teams and bulldozers insisted as many as eight people were still alive, trapped in the hotel pool. Rescuers pulled only four people from the site Friday. All were dead. Despite diminished hopes, foreign governments and international aid organizations airlifted tents, water, medicine, food and emergency workers into the busy Padang airport. Officials told The Associated Press that thousands were still missing based on reports from relatives, though exact figures were unavailable. It is not unusual in the wake of natural disasters to have many people listed as missing show up alive later. In the hilly, rural and relatively remote district of Pariaman, where just under 400,000 people like about 50 miles north of Padang, virtually no buildings remained standing, and there was little sign of outside help and little progress made in clearing landslides and blocked roads, according to an AP reporter who visited the area Friday. The quake originated along the same fault line that caused the 2004 tsunami, which killed 230,000 people in a dozen Asian nations. Nursim Salam, 51, was giving an oral exam when the earthquake struck. A teacher for 15 years, he said there were five students in the room testing, and four waiting outside. 'When I felt the quake, I told them all to get out. I just tried to save myself; we were all panicking,' he said as the wreckage of the school was sifted through behind him. Salam was later trapped in the lobby under debris for 12 hours before being freed. He doesn't know how many students are left inside. Special correspondent McDermid reported from Padang, and staff writer Magnier from New Delhi. 