Up to 1,000 killed and more trapped by earthquake in Indonesia's Sumatra As many as 1,000 people have been killed and many more have been trapped under collapsed buildings after a powerful earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra yesterday.
By Aislinn Laing
Published: 8:15PM BST 30 Sep 2009
Thousands of people were trapped as buildings, roads and bridges collapsed Photo: REUTERS The earthquake struck at 5.16pm (10.16 GMT), 78 kilometres (48 miles) southwest of the city of Padang in West Sumatra, along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami.
According to US Geological Survey, it measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, just shy of the size of earthquake that sparked a tsumani, devastating the Pacific islands of American and Western Samoa to the east of Australia on Tuesday.
Earthquakes hit Japan and Indonesia, but no tsunami
The shaking could be felt in high buildings in the capital, Jakarta, several hundred miles, and in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia. A tsunami alert was sent out to countries along the Indian Ocean, prompting many to flee to higher ground.
The death toll was set at 75 within hours of the quake, but Health Ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya warning it could exceed 1,000 in the city of close to one million residents.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla added: "It's hard to tell because there is heavy rain and a blackout."
Thousands of people were trapped as buildings, roads and bridges collapsed. The earthquake also triggered a landslide which cut power and telecommunications, resulting in further confusion. The crisis was exacerbated by the collapse of the city's main hospital and fires which broke out as power lines were severed.
Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie said authorities should prepare for the worst. He said damage could be on a par with an earthquake in the central Java city of Yogyakarta in 2006 that killed 6,000 people and damaged or destroyed 150,000 homes.
Three military transport planes in the capital were prepared to deliver aid including tents, blankets and medicine.
World Vision's Indonesian emergency head Jimmy Nadapdap said the charity would attempt to send out a disaster survey team to the affected area on Thursday morning.
"It is critical that we get people into the quake zone as soon as possible to find out what has happened," he said.
"If buildings have collapsed then people are likely to be in urgent need of food, water and especially shelter. The injured will also need medical assistance."
A resident of Padang city, Yuliarni, said the shaking was "the worst I have ever felt".
"Houses have collapsed, the lights and electricity were cut off, people were fleeing to higher ground and some were hurt," she said.
Padang, the capital of Indonesia's West Sumatra province, sits on one of the world's most active fault lines along the "Ring of Fire" where the Into-Australia plate grinds against the Eurasia plate to create regular earth tremors.
Geologists warned that Padang was vulnerable to more quakes and tsunamis, and even a volcanic eruption.
"There will be aftershocks but it's difficult to predict whether there will be a bigger quake," the unnamed head of Indonesia's Geological Disaster Mitigation and Volcanology Centre said.
"There are three big volcanoes in West Sumatra – Merapi, Talang and Tandikat. We fear that this quake might cause volcanic eruptions there."
A 9.15 magnitude quake, with its epicentre roughly 600km (373 miles) northwest of Padang, caused the 2004 tsunami which killed 232,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and other countries across the Indian Ocean.
bron:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/6248217/Up-to-1000-killed-and-more-trapped-by-earthquake-in-Indonesias-Sumatra.html
