Rescuers pulled a teenager alive from her collapsed college about 40 hours after a powerful earthquake devastated western Indonesia, while elsewhere they heard cries for help Friday from people trapped under a collapsed hotel. The rare success reinvigorated frantic efforts to find thousands of people still missing after Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude quake that toppled hundreds of buildings in Sumatra, a heavily populated island in this impoverished nation where natural disasters are common. Amid the grim landscape, rescuers found a reason to cheer: Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 19, an English major sophomore, was found alive under the rubble of her college, the Foreign Language School of Prayoga. A conscious Virgo was pulled out Friday morning, 40 hours after the quake hit Sumatra at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday. Amid excited shouts and words of encouragement to each other, rescuers pulled Virgo hands-first from a hole drilled in the debris. Her olive colored T-shirt almost spotless, Virgo was laid on a stretcher before being taken to hospital. “She is fine, conscious and does not have any life-threatening injuries,” said Nining Rosanti, a nurse, at the hospital. Officials said a lack of heavy digging equipment made it nearly impossible to pry apart giant slabs of concrete from toppled buildings. “Heavy equipment and rescuers are our priority,” said spokesman Priyadi Kardono of the national disaster management agency. “We have to give them complete access to enable them to rush to the victims.” At the site of the former Ambacang Hotel in Padang city, rescue workers detected signs of life under a hill of tangled steel, concrete slabs and broken bricks of the three-story structure, said Gagah Prakosa, a spokesman of the rescue team.
