The boy was found alongside the body of his grandmother as rain hampers search and rescue efforts in Cianjur
\n Cianjur
\nRescuers in Indonesia have pulled a six-year-old boy from the rubble of his collapsed house in Cianjur, after he survived the earthquake because he was protected by a mattress.
\nThe boy, named Azka Maulana Malik, had been trapped for two days and was found alive next to the body of his dead grandmother.
\nHe appeared calm as he was lifted to safety by the rescue team in a video that was shared online by the local fire department.
\n\u201c(Azka) is fine now, not wounded. The doctor said he\u2019s only weak because he\u2019s hungry,\u201d said relative Salman Alfarisi, as he held Azka\u2019s hand at a tent set up outside the quake-damaged hospital.
\nThe 22-year-old said the boy\u2019s mother had been killed in Monday\u2019s quake.
\n\u201cHe wants to go home now. He\u2019s been asking for his mother while sleeping.\u201d
\nThe death toll from the magnitude 5.6 earthquake in the west of the densely-populated Java island now stands at 271, but authorities expect that number to rise because some remote areas have yet to be reached and heavy rain has hampered rescue efforts. About 40 people remain missing and more than 2,000 are injured.
\nIt was the most deadly earthquake in Indonesia since 2018, when a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck in shallow waters off the city of Palu in Sulawesi, triggering a tsunami, liquefaction and landslides that devastated the city and killed more than 4,000 people.
\nPolice, soldiers and other rescue personnel used jackhammers, circular saws, farm tools and their bare hands to dig through piles of earth in the worst-hit area of Cijendil village, where a landslide left tonnes of mud, rocks and trees.
\nMuhammad Tohir, 48, was sitting in his living room with his family in Cijendil when the disaster struck. They managed to escape but his sister and her two children did not.
\n\u201cWhen I came to my sister\u2019s house, I was devastated by what I saw,\u201d Tohir said. \u201cDozens of houses had been buried by landslides. \u2026 It felt like doomsday.\u201d He said at least 45 people had been buried alive under tonnes of mud.
\nTohir and other residents searched for the missing using farm tools and managed to pull out two bodies. Two days later, rescue personnel arrived to help in the search.
\nTohir said he would not give up until they could pull his sister and nieces out of the mud.
\nRain and the danger of aftershocks triggering more landslides down muddy slopes had hampered search and rescue efforts, said Henri Alfiandi, chief of the search and rescue agency.
\nMore than 170 aftershocks, including a 3.9 magnitude tremor on Wednesday afternoon, have been recorded.
\n\u201cBecause the quake was quite strong and raining, we feared there would be landslides. But we have continued the evacuation process now,\u201d Henri told the Reuters news agency.
\nMore than 12,000 army personnel were deployed on Wednesday to bolster search efforts by police, the search and rescue agency and volunteers, said Suharyanto, chief of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
\nSuharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said aid was reaching thousands of people left homeless who fled to temporary shelters, where supplies were being taken by foot over the rough terrain.
\nNearly 62,000 survivors had been moved to shelters.
\nMost sought protection under makeshift shelters that have been lashed by the torrential rain. Only a few were protected by tarpaulin-covered tents.
\nExperts said the shallowness of the quake and the lack of earthquake-resistant buildings and roads contributed to the damage.
\nMore than 2.5 million people live in rural Cianjur district, including about 175,000 in its main town, which has the same name.
\nIndonesian President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur the day after the quake and promised to rebuild its infrastructure and provide assistance of up to 50 million rupiah ($3,180) to each resident whose house was damaged.
\nStraddling the so-called Ring of Fire, an active seismic zone where different plates on the earth\u2019s crust meet, Indonesia has a history of devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
\nIn December 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island in western Indonesia triggered a giant tsunami that swept ashore in 14 countries around the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people, more than half of them in Indonesia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The boy was found alongside the body of his grandmother as rain hampers search and rescue efforts in Cianjur Cianjur Rescuers in Indonesia have pulled a six-year-old boy from the rubble of his collapsed house in Cianjur, after he survived the earthquake because he was protected by a mattress. The boy, named Azka Maulana Malik, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11541],"class_list":{"0":"post-297253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-leadpakistan"},"yoast_head":"\n