Iwan Gunawan was forced to leave his badly injured wife buried under rubble to run outside to save his daughter after a powerful earthquake struck Indonesia’s largest province.

As he rushed to pull the girl out from under the rubble, a wall fell on the fishmonger, preventing him from breathing.

“I kept singing ‘God save me’. I was trying to protect my daughter and I was trying to be strong,” he said.

“I also wanted to save my wife, but if I had insisted, we would all have died.”

The quake, which killed 252 people near the worst-hit town of Cianjur on Monday, tore families and friends apart in seconds, forcing people to make heartbreaking decisions at the moment.

Roofs and walls collapsed without notice, while landslides on the city’s rolling hills obliterated vehicles and buried residents.

The next day, Gunawan stood in front of his ruined house and wiped a tear from his eyes as he remembered the death of his wife.

“It’s all ruined,” said the 41-year-old resident of Ciputri village in West Java.

Moments later, two men brought his daughter on a stretcher and placed her in front of the neighboring house. Gunawan rushed over to comfort her as she whimpered in pain.

“Dad is here now, don’t cry,” he told her, kissing her forehead.

Aprizal Mulyadi woke up on an ordinary Monday to study at his Islamic boarding school.

Hours later, he was pulled from the rubble, mourning the loss of a close friend who gave his life to save him.

The 14-year-old’s legs were trapped under concrete as the room around him collapsed.

Twelve-year-old Muhammad Zulfikar performed the ultimate act of friendship and pulled Mulyadi alive from the slaughter. Then, while trying to help another friend, the roof collapsed, burying him.

“I couldn’t help him because my legs and back were injured. When he was trapped he told me to go and save myself,” he said while sitting on a tarp behind the damaged school.

“I’m still traumatized, I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about what happened,” he added, grabbing his ankle, which was still swollen and bleeding from the debris.

The rescue mission continued through Tuesday to find those trapped by the disaster while residents attempted to recover their pets and belongings.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the area and offered compensation to those whose homes were destroyed.

Others prayed at funerals and funerals across the city, fighting back tears.

For some, that didn’t seem to matter compared to the trauma.

Gunawan began to sob as he recalled the day before the quake, when his wife was in the kitchen preparing cassava for the family.

“I am devastated. My house is destroyed and I lost my wife,” he said, choking on tears.

“God, please give me strength.”