PADANG, Indonesia (AP) - Ratna Kurniasari Virgo lay surrounded by death for 40 hours - trapped with a broken leg between the collapsed walls of her college and the bodies of her dead friends.
Her rescue Friday was a rare tale of survival two days after a massive Indonesian earthquake killed at least 715 people and left nearly 3,000 missing under the rubble of tens of thousands of buildings.
The wail of ambulances and the stench of decomposing bodies met volunteers from dozens of relief agencies Friday as they poured into the worst-hit area around the regional capital of Padang.
Block after block of toppled hotels, hospitals, office buildings and schools had yet to be searched and dozens of unclaimed corpses were laid out in the scorching sun at Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital, Padang's biggest, which was damaged in the quake.
Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude temblor devastated a stretch of more than 60 miles along the western coast of Sumatra island, prompting a massive international aid operation in a country where earthquakes have taken a huge human toll in recent years.