Sumatra quake: Aid worker's diary

Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies describes his experiences in the Indonesian city of Padang, where Wednesday's earthquake caused widespread devastation.

Rescue workers attempt to retrieve bodies from a collapsed building in Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia

Rescue workers have been living with as little as two hours sleep a night

Arriving in Padang my taxi driver Zul was keen to talk about the earthquake.

"We are all frightened of another tsunami, I'm sleeping with my family outside, there are too many aftershocks," he said.

But where was the devastation?

I became less sceptical as we rounded a corner and Zul pointed at a collapsed school. A pile of mangled metal and concrete.

As we neared the centre of town there was no escaping the sense of urgency; everyone seemed to be going somewhere in a hurry and there was the wail of ambulance sirens all around.

I spot some young Indonesian Red Cross volunteers clambering over a mountain of debris and stop. Their faces are covered in dust and hidden behind masks.

Signs of shock

Eko Sukardi is one of the team; he says they have been there since Thursday.

Much of their work has been to retrieve dead bodies from the wreckage and take them to the morgue. Eko complains that the hundreds of onlookers crowding around the collapsed Ambacang Hotel are getting in the way.

Eko says there could be 200 more people under the rubble. It is unsettling to see so many local people stand there taking pictures on their mobile phones.

Eko has been surviving with two hours sleep a night and he looks straight through me as we talk.

He is clearly exhausted and I recognise the signs of shock. I think back to my experience in Gujurat in 2001, after the earthquake in Bhuj, how the desperate search for survivors went on for days.

Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Patrick's colleagues have reported severe damage in outlying villages

Finally, I arrive at the Indonesian Red Cross headquarters, which is swarming with volunteers from neighbouring districts as well as international teams who have arrived from the Red Cross societies of Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Turkey.

It is getting dark and the adrenalin is running high but everyone is exhausted. One of the offices is littered with sleeping bodies on the floor.

I interview some volunteers and take some pictures of tents and tarpaulins being loaded onto trucks for distribution tomorrow. Four teams went out to different villages today.

Rukman, the disaster response co-ordinator, tells me he came across a village of 400 houses near Pariaman.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the houses are flattened, we are taking a mobile kitchen and some tents there tomorrow," he says.

The BBC call, they want to send a team up in our chartered helicopter. It only takes four people and as much as I want to help, priority has to go to members of our medical team who will be setting up emergency clinics in some of the more remote villages.