S'pore volunteers in Sulawesi share heartbreaking accounts from earthquake relief operations

"See this picture? This is someone inside it. This is the person’s hair."

Tanya Ong | October 31, 2018, 05:11 PM

Sulawesi was hit by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake on September 28, 2018.

The earthquake ravaged Palu, a city in Sulawesi, and left thousands dead.

Singapore volunteers in Sulawesi

On Oct. 29, a bunch of Singaporeans from the Muslim Youth Forum, as well as Back2Basics, a community that provides basic needs to underprivileged families in Singapore, went to Sulawesi to volunteer.

Heartbreaking accounts

In some photos by the Basic2Basics and Muslim Youth Forum Singapore team, the volunteers detailed heartbreaking accounts of what they encountered in Palu.

On Oct. 31, they uploaded a photo of hair trapped between the rubble:

The photo caption said: "See this picture? This is someone inside it. This is the person’s hair."

"This is probably a female. Her family will never find her. They will never know where or what happened to her...These lands are filled with hundreds and thousands of bodies buried underneath. Men, women and children."

Back2Basics also shared some quotes from a humanitarian worker who witnessed the earthquake and described the land as a "juice blender":

"The land turns like a juice blender and then it just sinks to the ground. Whole. But immediately after, it levels again and becomes flat as though nothing happened. If it was soft, we could still attempt to dig people out but it hardens completely."

In a separate Facebook post, Noor Mastura, one of the Singapore volunteers, shared another quote from the humanitarian worker, who said that her "friend is still buried with her husband and her four year old son":

“My friend is still buried. With her husband and her 4 year old son. I have tried to ask for the evacuation process to move a little faster, so that if by God’s grace, they are still alive, they can survive.  But all our resources are spread too far and too thin. It has been 3 weeks now. Is it foolish of me to still be hopeful?”

S'poreans donated toys and money

Mastura, who is the founder of Back2Basics Singapore, is among the group of Singaporeans who got in touch with an Indonesian relief organisation.

The organisation asked for toys, and so, the volunteers collected pre-loved toys to be distributed to the children of Palu:

Photo via Noor Mastura's Facebook post.

Photo via Noor Mastura's Facebook post.
This is her Facebook post:

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Top photo via Back2Basics Facebook post.