MEUREUDU, Indonesia – Humanitarian organizations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province Thursday as the local disaster agency called for urgent food supplies and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people. Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel concentrated their search on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the death toll had risen to 102, spread across three districts in northern Aceh, and the number “probably will increase”. Search and rescue crews using advanced life-detecting devices have been combing the rubble for any sign of movement, as hopes fade of finding any more survivors more than a day after the quake. But more was needed for the 4,000 people evacuated to shelters, said local disaster agency chief Puteh Manaf. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but he was resigned to it as “God’s will.”

He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit. Hundreds of houses and shops had been leveled by the quake, leaving countless people homeless and in need of basic supplies like food and water, officials said. Nugroho said more than 11,000 people have been displaced and are staying at shelters and mosques or with relatives. The death toll has steadily climbed as rescue crews search, often by hand, through the homes, mosques and shops reduced to ruins. Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the terrifying memory of a giant earthquake that struck off Sumatra on December 26th, 2004. The magnitude-9.1 quake triggered a devastating tsunami that killed more than 100,000 Acehnese. “What’s badly needed now are staple foods such as rice, cooking oil, salted fish and other foods,” said Sulaiman. He said people had complained about a lack of clean water, but the problem has been tackled and electricity supply is returning to normal in many areas. “Every aid and civil society organization is piling into the area with as many boxes of rice, instant noodles, blankets and other aid as they can shift,” said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, which has an assessment team in northern Aceh. “It will take several more days to get a full picture of the impact,” CARE’s Indonesia director Helen Vanwel said in a statement. The Red Cross sent aid such as water trucks on Wednesday and humanitarian group CARE is leading an assessment team of four international aid groups to avoid duplication of efforts. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was centered about 19 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Sigli, a town near the northern tip of Sumatra, at a depth of 17 kilometers (11 miles). Experts said the quake did more damage than expected because of poorly constructed buildings. Aftershocks rattled the survivors of a devastating Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 100 people, and officials urgently appealed Thursday for medicine and doctors to treat the hundreds injured. The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. Wednesday's 6.5 magnitude quake was the biggest disaster to hit the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, which killed more than 120,000 people in Aceh alone. Some of the victims included people attending a wedding party, The Jakarta Post reported.
International aid organisations arrive in the Indonesian province of Aceh as the death toll for the earthquake passes 100.