Search and rescue operation in Indonesia to end on Thursday

Indonesian rescue workers will stop searching for the bodies of victims of an earthquake and tsunami on the island of Sulawesi on Thursday, the national disaster mitigation agency said on Sunday.

The official death toll from the Sept. 28 disaster rose to 1,763. Bodies are still being recovered from the ruins of buildings in the small city of Palu and from neighbourhoods hit by liquefaction, a phenomenon that turns the ground into a roiling quagmire, in the south of the city.

(With inputs from agencies.)