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Indonesia Quake Toll Passes 1,000
Samoa tsunami cleanup effort begins in earnest
By John Johnson
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Posted Oct 1, 09 1:34 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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The death toll in Indonesia has reached 1,100 and is expected to keep rising. Rescue workers are scrambling to find earthquake survivors under trapped buildings, with "many hundreds more" injured or missing, says a top UN relief official. Rescue efforts have been hung up over a shortage of heavy equipment, along with damaged roads, bridges, and hospitals, reports the BBC. Further clouding the picture, a 6.8-magnitude quake struck this morning; no casualties have been reported as a result.
"It's just such a vast area to be working in with such bad infrastructure," said a Red Cross official. Meanwhile, tsunami-recovery efforts proceeded in the Samoas, where the death toll has exceeded 150. Relief organizations are speeding supplies to the US territory and adjacent nation devastated by the wave. "Everything the tsunami touched was just destroyed," a local resident tells USA Today. "This thing hit with all its fury."