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The toll from an earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia soared to 832 confirmed deaths Sunday, with authorities fearing the numbers will climb as rescuers grappled to get aid to outlying communities cut off from communications and help.
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Dozens of people were reportedly trapped in the rubble of several hotels and a mall in the city of Palu, on Sulawesi island, which was hit by waves as high as six meters (20 feet) following the 7.5 magnitude earthquake on Friday.
A woman was pulled alive from the debris of the city's Roa Roa Hotel, where up to 60 people were believed trapped. Hundreds of people gathered at the wrecked eight-story Tatura Mall searching for loved ones.
"Grieve for the people of Central Sulawesi. We all grieve together," President Joko Widodo tweeted late Sunday.
Most of the confirmed deaths were in Palu itself, and authorities are bracing for the toll to climb as connections with outlying areas are restored.
Of particular concern are Donggala, a region of 300,000 people north of Palu and close to the epicenter of the quake, and two other districts, which have been cut off from communications since Friday.
"We haven't received reports from the three other areas. Communication is still down. Power is still out. We don't know for sure what is the impact," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, told a news conference.
Along with Palu, 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Jakarta, these districts have a combined population of about 1.4 million.
Social worker Lian Gogali tweeted from the area that several villages on the west coast of Sulawesi were in desperate need of food, medicine and shelter, and that road access was still limited.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the death toll could rise into the thousands.
Footage of the ruined city shows a crumpled mess of houses, cars and trees mashed together by the quake, with rooftops and roads split and left at all angles.
Indonesia, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, is all too familiar with deadly earthquakes and tsunamis. In 2004, a quake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.
Questions are sure to be asked about why warning systems set up after that disaster appear to have failed Friday. Nugroho, bemoaning a reduction in funding, said no tsunami buoys, one type of instrument used to detect the waves, in Indonesia had been operating since 2012.
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