Foreign Rescuers End Mission in West Sumatra

International rescuers have left West Sumatra after ending their operations searching for survivors of last Wednesday’s 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Padang.

They left the province after their one-week search for the survivors of the devastating earthquake and landslides has passed.

"Most of the international rescue teams have returned to their respective countries and our sincere gratitude goes with them who have helped us in the search and evacuation efforts," local Disaster Mitigation Coordination Unit (Satkorlak) spokesman Marlis Rahman said here on Thursday.

Marlis said the international rescuers had left the province because the purpose of their presence in West Sumatra was to search and evacuate the quake survivors who were buried in the landslides and trapped in the rubles of collapsed houses and buildings.

"Their focus is to search and rescue the quake victims who are thought to remain surviving, and the process of search and evacuation effort has lasted for one week," Marlis said, adding that more than 800 international rescuers had stopped their activity and started to return.

He said the international rescuers from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and a number of European countries had left for their respective countries but the rests from the United States, Singapore, and Malaysia remained in West Sumatra to focus their assistance on health care affairs.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) has commended Indonesia’s emergency response actions in the aftermath of the magnitude-7.6 earthquake in Padang, West Sumatra.

"UNDAC is of the opinion that Indonesia is more than able to overcome the problems in West Sumatra after the devastating earthquake," UNDAC team leader Winston Chang said here on Thursday.

He said Indonesia was so good in its emergency response actions that a lot of technology which UNDAC had prepared for the evacuation of quake victims had remained unused.

More than 700 people have been killed, at least 340 others remain , and thousands of others have become homeless after the strong quake rattled West Sumatra.