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Medics witness death wave aftermath |
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 Ambulances arrive relentlessly at Motootua Hospital in Apia. They bring body, after body, after body.
Of the 79 confirmed dead by 10pm, the oldest is a 102-year-old woman, the youngest a 2-month old child.
For three hours, they have been bringing in 15 bodies an hour.
Outside, families wait in groups.
There is no wailing or crying.
It’s unimaginable, they say.
This is Samoa; this doesn’t happen here. Inside, doctors, nurses and hospital volunteers work in silence carrying the bodies into a chapel.
The usual rules of postmortem have
been thrown out. Instead, the pathologist confirms death and family members identify their loved ones.
A steady stream of policemen bring the bodies outside and they call out the names of the dead.
The bodies are then put into a hearse and taken to mortuaries.
All the public mortuaries are full and they are being sent to three private ones.
The hospital is not equipped for tragedy on this scale - there are not enough doctors and nurses to treat everyone. A makeshift chiller has been created to store bodies. Six tourists are among the confirmed dead.
Twelve New Zealanders have been treated for various injuries but since discharged.
More than 180 others have needed treatment, mainly for broken bones.
Dr Limbo Fiu, head of clinical services, said hospitals were struggling to cope.
Yesterday’s arrival of New Zealand and Australian medical teams could not come soon enough. “I’ve never seen this kind of devastation. It’s unprecedented in the history of this country,” said Dr Fiu. Back
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