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Indonesian rescue workers racing to reach trapped victims, recover bodies after earthquake leaves at least 268 dead

Stories of tragedy and survival have emerged following Monday's devastating earthquake in Indonesia's West Java that killed at least 268 people.

The number of dead has increased as more bodies were found beneath collapsed buildings, and 151 people are still missing, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency said.

Another 1,083 people were injured, according to the head of the agency. 

The updated death toll comes as Indonesian rescue workers were racing to reach people still trapped in rubble — and recover more bodies — a day after the shallow magnitude-5.6 earthquake devastated the town of Cianjur, in the mountainous district of the same name in Indonesia's most populous province. 

The tremor prompted panicked residents to flee onto the streets as buildings collapsed.

One woman told Associated Press when the earthquake hit her home, the building started "shaking like it was dancing".

"I was crying and immediately grabbed my husband and children," said the woman, who gave her name only as Partinem. The house collapsed shortly after she escaped with her family.

"If I didn't pull them out we might have also been victims," she said, gazing over the pile of concrete and timber rubble.

Many of the fatalities were caused by falling buildings, the head of Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency, Dwikorita Karnawati, said in a statement.

Overnight, a hospital parking lot in Cianjur town was inundated with victims, some treated in makeshift tents, others hooked up to intravenous drips on the pavement, while medical workers stitched up patients under the light of torches.

"Everything collapsed beneath me and I was crushed beneath this child," Cucu, a 48-year-old resident, told Reuters, from the crowded hospital parking area.

"Two of my kids survived, I dug them up … Two others I brought here, and one is still missing," she said through tears.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of police officers had been deployed to assist in rescue efforts, Dedi Prasetyo, national police spokesperson told the Antara state news agency.

"Today's main task order for personnel is to focus on evacuating victims," he said.

Rescue operations were focused on about a dozen locations in Cianjur district, where people were still believed trapped, said Endra Atmawidjaja, the public works and housing spokesperson.

"We are racing against time to rescue people," Mr Atmawidjaja said, adding that seven excavators and 10 large trucks had been deployed from neighbouring Bandung and Bogor cities to continue clearing trees and soil that blocked roads.

At least 162 people were killed in Monday's quake, many of them children, with more than 300 injured, West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said, warning some residents remained trapped in isolated places.

Authorities were operating "under the assumption that the number of injured and death will rise with time", he said.

"The challenge is the affected area is spread out … On top of that, the roads in these villages are damaged," Henri Alfiandi, head of National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), told a news conference.

"Most of the casualties are children, because at 1pm they were still at school," he said of the time the quake hit.

Basarnas confirmed at least 162 people had died and more than 13,000 people had been evacuated.

Cianjur police chief told Metro TV news channel that 20 people had been evacuated from the Cianjur sub-district Cugenang so far, most of whom had died, with residents still reporting missing family members.

The area was hit by a landslide triggered by the quake that had blocked access to the area.

"At least six of my relatives are still unaccounted-for, three adults and three children," said Zainuddin, a local resident from Cugenang.

"If it was just an earthquake only the houses would collapse, but this is worse because of the landslide. In this residential area there were eight houses, all of the which were buried and swept away."

Rescue efforts were complicated by electricity outages in some areas, and 117 aftershocks.

The earthquake, which struck at a depth of just 10km and was felt strongly in the capital Jakarta about 75km away, damaged at least 2,200 homes and displaced more than 5,000 people, the BNPB said.

Straddling the so-called "Ring of Fire", a highly seismically active zone where different plates on the earth's crust meet, Indonesia has a history of devastating earthquakes.

In 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake off Sumatra island in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that struck 14 countries, killing 226,000 people along the Indian Ocean coastline, more than half of them in Indonesia.

Seismologist Meghan Miller analyses the intensity of the earthquake and its impact.

ABC/wires

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