Major quake and tsunami cause deaths in Indonesian city

Major quake and tsunami cause deaths in Indonesian city

A tsunami up to two metres high hit a small city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday after a major 7.5 quake struck offshore, collapsing buildings and washing a vessel ashore, but officials could provide no information on casualties.

Paramedic gives treatment to an earthquake survivor outside a hospital in Donggala



"The earthquake and tsunami caused several casualties ... while initial reports show that victims died in the rubble of a collapsing building," National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told reporters. "The number of casualties and the full impact is still being calculated."



More than 600,000 people live in Palu and Donggala.

"The 1.5- to two-metre tsunami has receded," Dwikorita Karnawati, who heads Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency, BMKG, told Reuters. "The situation is chaotic. People are running on the streets and buildings have collapsed. There is a ship washed ashore."


Amateur footage shown by local TV stations, which could not immediately be authenticated by Reuters, showed waters crashing into houses along Palu's shoreline, scattering shipping containers and flooding into a mosque in the city.







Some people took to Twitter saying they could not contact loved ones. "My family in Palu is unreachable," Twitter user @noyvionella said.

Palu airport was closed.



"Aftershocks are still continuing," Nugroho said.

"Communication has been crippled at this time, causing difficulties in coordination and reporting with the region."




Source: Agencies/zl