Man's worst nightmare comes true as he loses wife, children in quake

But in the early hours of Wednesday, he felt a sense of melancholy and just wanted to keep gazing at the faces of his three children and wife who were fast asleep.

Unknowingly, it was the last time he was seeing them, for just a few minutes later, his wife and children were dead in the ruins of his two-storey shophouse here, which was destroyed by an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale.

When met at a makeshift camp for earthquake victims, Nasal could not suppress his tears when he recalled the moment of eternal separation from his wife and children in the incident at about 4.30am.

"After prayers, somehow I felt very sad and wanted to see my three children, Mohamad Sidik, 11 months, who slept in the cradle, and my two daughters, Maulida, 16, and Niahsain, 10, who were sleeping in their room," he said.

He then gazed at the face of his wife, Khatijah, 40, who was asleep, unaware that her husband was looking at her for about a minute.

"When I came out of the bedroom, I suddenly felt a minor tremor and a few seconds later the whole house started shaking strongly and I fell down with the house collapsing around me," he said.

Nasal then crawled amid the rubble and dirt in total darkness to go back up and look for his children and wife.

He said, at that moment he heard his son crying but did not know from which direction and he spotted one of his daughter's leg among the rubble but her body had been crushed by a stone wall.

"I tried to free my child from the rubble but could not and my head hit the wall. I was bleeding but I kept looking for a way out to get help," he said.

Nasal said after he managed to get out of the rubble, he was stunned to find that his house had completely sunk and only the roof could be seen.

"I wept until there was no more tears left. I cried out for help but people were unable to help because whole rows of shophouses had been buried in the rubble," he said.

He recalled that only after about two hours later, the search-and-rescue team arrived and it was about an hour after that the bodies of his children were removed from the rubble.

One by one the bodies of my son and two daughters were brought out and the body of my wife at about 4pm. I took them back to our village and buried them in one grave," he said.

Nasal said he then became confused and could not remember anything else and did not know what to do next.

Nasal's eldest daughter, Magfirah, 18, who has been staying at a university hostel in Aceh, rushed home after receiving the news about her family from a relative.

"I do not know what to do, I have lost my little brother, my younger sisters and mother at the same time. Only God knows my suffering," she said, holding back her tears. She is now keeping her father company at the camp.

The earthquake that has claimed more than 100 lives and destroyed hundreds of buildings and homes is the second worst tragedy in Aceh after the 2004 tsunami that claimed more than 100,000 lives.