The death toll from the earthquake and ensuing tsunami last week that struck Indonesia has risen to 1,649, the latest number provided by the country's disaster agency on Saturday afternoon.
Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told reporters 265 people are reportedly missing, with hundreds of bodies still buried under deep mud and the rubble of collapsed structures.
The twin disasters, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake, and a tsunami that followed struck Palu and surrounding districts in Central Sulawesi province on Sept. 28.
Following the deadly disasters, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has urged rescuers to find the bodies of all victims, as efforts continue with assistance from 25 foreign countries and four international organizations.
But it may take up to five months to find all of the dead.
A victim of last week's earthquake is recovered in the Balaroa neighborhood in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, October 6, 2018./ Reuters Photo
Arnaud Allibert and four other members of the group Pompiers Humanitaires Francais were the first rescuers to descend into the debris of what remains of the village of Petobo.
The team's task is to find and retrieve the bodies at the surface to clear the way for the heavy machinery to come in and dig deeper. Allibert told Reuters it would take months to find all the bodies.
"It might take four to five months to remove all the soil, and that's with the excavators," he said. "The excavators can't take huge amounts of soil because there are bodies underneath; you have to scrape the earth carefully."
(With input from Reuters)