Indonesians shaken and struggling after devastating earthquake

PADANG, INDONESIA — Uly Marisa picked up her broom and swept away broken glass and shattered pottery Sunday as the wail of noon prayers rang out over her battered neighborhood in Padang. The radio station employee has lived through several earthquakes since she moved to this port city of 900,000 people several years ago. But Wednesday's magnitude 7.6 quake, which killed hundreds of people, was the worst by far. It left her deeply shaken and reflective.

"Everything happens as a lesson from God to us," she said. "I will just pray and be thankful that I can enjoy what I can."

As people start to rebuild their lives, they're searching for answers, grappling with the enormity of their loss and doing what they can to make sense of it all.

Very few people in this impoverished country have insurance. And Indonesia's tourism industry, an economic cornerstone, is battered. An estimated 70% of hotel rooms in Padang, on Sumatra island, were destroyed. Power is intermittent, and fuel and clean water remain scarce.

Experts believe thousands of people are still buried under collapsed buildings, and hopes of finding them alive are fading. The crowds that ringed rescue operations at collapsed schools and hotels in recent days have all but disappeared. Torrential rains have hampered rescue efforts. Most emergency crews have shifted their efforts to identifying and burying bodies.

The massive international effort, involving more than a dozen governments and 72 aid organizations, is fanning out beyond Padang to rural villages, where thousands are homeless and hungry after quake-triggered landslides blocked access roads, demolished homes and swallowed at least three villages.

In the hills of Padang Pariaman district, about 35 miles from Padang, entire hillsides were shaken loose.

"We can be sure that [the people there] are dead," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters. "So now we are waiting for burials."

About 200 to 300 wedding guests who fled a restaurant in Jumanak village were buried by a landslide, including the bride, her 15-year-old brother, Iseh, told the Associated Press.

Those who survived in Jumanak said they still hadn't seen any rescue crews four days after the earthquake, with some residents reportedly reduced to digging out rotting corpses with their bare hands.

Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency said 83,712 houses, 200 public buildings and 285 schools were destroyed. An additional 100,000 buildings and 20 miles of road were badly damaged. Five bridges collapsed.