Rescue workers raced against time today in the hope of finding survivors under the debris of razed homes. Some 35,000 buildings around the city of Yogyakarta were reduced to rubble when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck at dawn on Saturday. A major relief operation has swung into motion, with teams from across the country and abroad arriving in the disaster zone. The town of Bantul, south of Yogyakarta city - where some two thirds of the victims died - has become the centre for this operation, with aid agencies and the Indonesian military co-ordinating to distribute it to surrounding towns and villages. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the emergency period would last three months and the government aimed to complete "reconstruction and rehabilitation" within a year. "We will have an emergency period for three months - May till August. The objectives are providing food, healthcare and shelter. "The funds needed are about 1 trillion rupiah ($100 million) ... for repairing homes and facilitating people's needs. This figure can change. It comes from the state budget and international aid," he said after the Cabinet meeting. An estimated 35,000 homes and buildings had been destroyed and 50,000 people needed help, Kalla said, adding that the quake had destroyed power facilities worth 200 billion rupiah. Rescue efforts have been hampered by frequent power cuts and heavy rain. Government figures put the number of injured at 2,155, but John Budd, a spokesman for UNICEF, said 20,000 had been injured and more than 100,000 were homeless. HI/HA/IINA
