WORLD / Asia-Pacific
At least 82 dead in Indonesia quake
(AFP)
Updated: 2007-03-06 21:17
At least 82 people were killed Tuesday and hundreds injured in a
6.3-magnitude earthquake that rocked Indonesia's Sumatra island,
officials said.
Indonesians flee to the streets after strong earthquakes hit the city of
Padang in West Sumatra March 6, 2007. Two strong earthquakes hit
Indonesia's Sumatra island on Tuesday, killing at least 82 people,
flattening buildings and sending emergency operations into full swing to
deal with the injured and displaced. [Reuters]
"The toll won't stop rising because the quake happened in a relatively
populated region," said Damien Personnaz, a spokesman for children's
agency UNICEF, who gave the figure of 82 dead.
Two UNICEF teams are in Sumatra monitoring the situation.
Hundreds of others were injured, Rosmini Savitri, an official in the
disaster zone, told AFP by phone.
"The number of people injured has become 257," she said.
The quake hit at 10:49 am (0349 GMT), the US Geological Survey said,
about 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of the West Sumatra capital
Padang. Tanah Datar, Solok and Padang were among the worst hit areas in
Sumatra.
It appeared to have been followed by an aftershock almost as strong.
Hospitals in Solok and other areas on Sumatra were already working at
full capacity and unable to treat more people, rescue coordinator Suryadi
told AFP by telephone from the disaster zone.
A spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had earlier said at
least 70 were killed and scores injured.
He said the president may go to the disaster site and had ordered police,
military, local authorities and government ministers to coordinate to do
all they could to bring relief to the stricken areas.
Many people were trapped in collapsed buildings and there was no official
information about the situation at the quake's epicentre because phone
lines were down, Utjin Sudiana, West Sumatra's police chief, told AFP.
"The epicentre is in Batusangkar but communication is disconnected from
there so we don't know what the damage is," he said.
Solok mayor Samsurahim said there was widespread damage.
"Several houses have collapsed. There are hundreds of victims," he told
ElShinta radio, adding that a school had burnt to the ground after the
quake.
Indonesia, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, sits on the so-called
Pacific Ring of Fire, where continental plates meet -- and where
earthquakes are a regular and often deadly occurrence.
Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the earthquake-triggered Indian
Ocean tsunami in December 2004, which killed some 168,000 people in Aceh
province on the northern tip of Sumatra.
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