NEW DELHI AND PADANG, INDONESIA — Hundreds of people remained trapped in collapsed buildings Thursday after two powerful earthquakes struck near Padang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 777 people.
The toll was expected to rise. U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes put the figure at 1,100 and Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said it could soar into the thousands.
"Let's be prepared for the worst," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in the capital, Jakarta, before boarding a flight for Padang. "Let's not underestimate."
The latest government death toll was provided to the Associated Press by an Indonesian official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to journalists.
Thursday morning's magnitude 6.6 earthquake came on the heels of a magnitude 7.6 quake Wednesday evening that left the city of 900,000 reeling.
"We are overwhelmed with victims and . . . lack of clean water, electricity and telecommunications," Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar said on Elshinta radio. "We call on people to come to Padang to evacuate bodies and help the injured."
"I was shocked," said Sarah Vaniachavvah, 21, a college student, who was at home when the first quake hit.
Like many, she initially feared a tsunami and fled to higher ground.
"All the buildings started falling down. It was total destruction," she said. "Now everyone just wants to get away from here as soon as possible."
Desperate residents dug with their bare hands in hopes of freeing loved ones from flattened buildings. Streets were filled early today with screeching ambulances, funeral processions and dazed people. Gas stations were mobbed.
In front of an English-language school that had been in session when the disaster struck, distraught parents waited behind a barricade, hoping for good news, as a backhoe tried to move aside giant blocks of concrete and other pieces of wreckage.
A diplomat at the U.S. Embassy said officials were searching for missing Americans, but did not say how many were unaccounted for.
Amid the scenes of major destruction, some buildings seemed to be largely untouched. There was no immediate evidence of looting.
Health Minister Supari told the local station Metro TV, "This is a high-scale disaster," and officials appealed for heavy equipment to help free the buried.
