Pinned under concrete in the pitch dark, Marthonis - the chief of Kuta Pangwa village - was not alone.
Every house in his small hamlet was flattened when a 6.5-magnitude quake tore through Aceh province in Indonesia's west, killing more than 100 people.
Marthonis' mother was among the dead, crushed in her sleep.
"My mother didn't survive. Maybe it was her destiny to die in a disaster like this," Marthonis told AFP.
It was not his mother's first encounter with nature's fury: she had survived the destruction of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, that killed 170,000 in Aceh alone.
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Fifteen people from his village died in the quake - so many from one family they were buried in a single grave.
As daylight arrived, similar tragedies were unfolding across Aceh, and the scale of devastation becoming clear.
Hundreds of homes, mosques and businesses had been reduced to rubble, burying families in their sleep.
A frantic search for survivors began, many clawing at the rubble with their bare hands.
Rahmawati, 35, was among those pulled from the wreckage five hours after the quake struck.
"I accept this as fate, because in the end we all will be called back to Allah," she told AFP.
As aid pours into Aceh, the villagers from Kuta Pangwa - like thousands of others across the province - must prepare for a second night eating at temporary kitchens and sleeping in shelters.
Hundreds more will spend another evening in ill-equipped health clinics and overcrowded field hospitals, waiting to see a doctor.
As the rubble is slowly cleared, and victims laid to rest, the enormous task of rebuilding will begin.
"Every one of my villagers' homes is destroyed," he said, gesturing to piles of grey rubble where a neighbourhood once stood.
"Nothing can be occupied again.
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