The death toll from this week’s earthquake that shook Indonesia’s main island of Java has risen to 310, the country’s national disaster mitigation agency said on Friday.
Monday’s earthquake triggered landslides, collapsed roofs and walls and buried victims in mounds of earth.
The agency’s chief Suharyanto, who goes by one name, said 24 people are still missing in the West Java town of Cianjur.
On Wednesday, a six-year-old boy, Azka, was rescued alive from the rubble – a rescue that was described as a “miracle” after he survived more than two days without food or water.
Heavy rain and potentially deadly aftershocks have hampered the rescue effort.
Henri Alfiandi, head of the national search and rescue agency, told RTE: “The problems are the unstable soil, the thickness of the landslide pile aggravated by continuous rain, and the concerns of aftershocks.”
He said the emergency period for the search and rescue effort would last a week until Monday and authorities would evaluate if it needed to be extended if all the missing had not been found.
Many of those killed in the quake were children, some in classes at school, according to officials.
