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Padang, West Sumatra. Rescue teams were still desperately searching for survivors underneath the remains of the collapsed Ambacang Hotel in Padang, West Sumatra, on Saturday, refusing to give up hope of finding people alive more than two days after a powerful earthquake wreaked havoc on the city.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla visited the hotel site on Saturday afternoon and expressed his sadness at the loss of life.

Kalla said it would take six months to reconstruct the quake-ravaged cities of Padang and Pariaman.

Richard Erlangga, a member of the local disaster management coordinating team, said on Saturday that search and rescue teams have been working at the hotel site for more than 24 hours straight.

"Finally at 2 a.m. this morning, we identified that there was one person trapped in the lower ground level of the hotel," Richard said.

"But we still haven’t been able to reach the person, we can only see them.  We don’t know yet whether it is a man or a woman,” he said.

The search and rescue team had swept two areas of the hotel to try and find a way in, he said. A team from Saudi Arabia arrived on Saturday to assist.

Richard said he could not confirm reports that there were expatriates, including Australians who had been attending a seminar, inside the hotel.

On Friday, Rustam Pakaya from the Ministry of Health’s Crisis Center said that representatives from the Australian Embassy had spoken to him and said they were looking for two Australians who may have been attending a seminar at the hotel at the time of the earthquake.