Paulina Pobi could neither move nor speak.
At 84, the woman suffered from paralysis and became trapped beneath the bamboo walls of her own home when a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the island of Flores, Indonesia, on Saturday, August 15, 2026. A landslide blocked the road to Nitunglea, the village where she lived, and her family—convinced that she had already been taken to a shelter—took four days to return and look for her.
They found her on Tuesday, still alive, among the rubble where she had remained for days without eating or drinking a drop of water. Local official Rudolfus Riba confirmed that she had no injuries, only weakness.
Meanwhile, the earthquake had already claimed 73 lives, injured more than 900 people and displaced nearly 60,000, with more than 3,000 aftershocks recorded in the region.