Survivors grow desperate as toll rises

President prioritizes rescue effort amid reports of looting, public anger

PALU, Indonesia -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered more rescuers to be sent in to find victims of a devastating earthquake and tsunami on Tuesday as the official death toll rose above 1,200 and looting raised fears of growing lawlessness.

Most of the dead have been from the small city of Palu, 1,500 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, but some remote areas have been cut off since Friday's magnitude 7.5 quake triggered tsunami waves, leading to fears the toll could soar.

"There are some main priorities that we must tackle and the first is to evacuate, find and save victims who've not yet been found," Widodo told a government meeting to coordinate disaster recovery efforts on the west coast of Sulawesi island.

He said he had ordered the national search and rescue agency to send more police and soldiers into the affected districts, some cut off by destroyed roads, landslides and downed bridges.

The official death toll surged to 1,234, the national disaster agency said.

The Red Cross said the situation was "nightmarish" and reports from its workers venturing into one cutoff area, Donggala, a region of 300,000 people north of Palu and close to the epicenter, indicated it had been hit "extremely hard".

Four badly hit districts have a combined population of about 1.4 million.

In Palu, tsunami waves as high as 6 meters smashed into the beachfront, while hotels and shopping malls collapsed in ruins and some neighborhoods were swallowed up by ground liquefaction.

Among those killed were 34 children at a Christian bible study camp, a Red Cross official said.

The government has ordered aid supplies to be airlifted in but there's little sign of help on Palu's shattered streets and survivors appeared increasingly desperate.

Reporters saw a shop cleared by about 100 people, shouting, scrambling and fighting each other for items including clothes, toiletries, blankets and water.

"We feel like we are stepchildren here because all the help is going to Palu," said Mohamad Taufik, 38, from Donggala, who said five of his relatives are still missing. "There are many young children here who are hungry and sick, but there is no milk or medicine."

At least 20 police were at the scene but did not intervene. The government has played down fears of looting saying disaster victims could take essential goods and shops would be compensated later.

The government has said it would accept offers of international aid, having shunned outside help earlier this year when an earthquake struck the island of Lombok.

Several countries have pledged financial assistance.

Rescuers in Palu held out hope they could still save lives.

"We suspect there are still some survivors trapped inside," the head of one rescue team, Agus Haryono, said at the collapsed seven-story Hotel Roa Roa.

About 50 people were believed to have been caught inside the hotel when it was brought down. About nine bodies have been recovered from the ruins and three rescued alive.

Kawadi Razak, the chief of Sulawesi's Sopeng district, who is connected to Balaroa because about 100 people from Sopeng had migrated there and some are among the missing, said the neighborhood was home to more than 2,000 people.

"They have to speed up the aid," he said. "I saw how emotional people are here when I distributed some food. Everyone scrambled and almost fought each other."

Reuters