The body of seven-year-old Indonesian girl Ashika Nur Fauziah, also known as Cika, was found by rescue workers after an earthquake killed hundreds in West Java has been found dead, rescuers told AFP on friday.
Ashika Nur Fauziah’s body was found under rubble in the worst-hit district of Cianjur town, the epicentre of the quake that triggered landslides, collapsed roofs, walls and buried victims in mounds of earth on Monday.
“The body was immediately handed over to the family,” 28-year-old rescuer Jeksen Kolibu told AFP. “The family… was very sad.”
“She was playing outside, I was cooking in the kitchen, suddenly the earthquake happened, so fast, only two seconds, my house collapsed,” her mother Imas Masfahitah, 34, told AFP at the scene on Thursday.
“Whatever happens, I will try to accept it,” she added, crying as she held her daughter’s sandals.
Dozens of rescuers had spent most of Thursday using digging tools, hammers, and their bare hands to clear debris in the delicate mission, which was suspended overnight.
Cika was found under three layers of concrete on Friday morning, said Kolibu. Workers found her face-down, encased by debris, with little space to breathe.
Rescuers covered her face and put her into a bodybag as her father Ahmad watched on, holding his head in despair. He did not utter a word as she was handed over to him.
Cika was buried at a nearby cemetery less than an hour after being found.
At the funeral, a cleric tried to calm a visibly emotional Ahmad.
Cika was then wrapped in a white sheet and lowered into the ground by three men as exhausted volunteers and firefighters watched.
The most recent official death toll from the quake was 272.
A 5.6-magnitude earthquake on November 21. that killed at least 271 people.
