Earthquake and tsunami cause death in Indonesian city

A tsunami caused death Friday in a small town in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, following a major earthquake, collapse of buildings and power outage, said responsible, but did not specify the exact number of victims.

The two-meter-high tidal wave hit beaches as twilight announced in Palu, a growing but increasingly sumptuous seaside resort, as well as in Donggala, a fishing village. located nearby, 27 km from the epicenter of the earthquake, officials said.

"The earthquake and tsunami have caused several casualties … while initial reports show that the victims died under the rubble of a building collapsing," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told reporters. spokesperson of the National Agency for the Reduction of Natural Disasters. "The number of casualties and the total impact is still being calculated."

Nugroho said the disaster caused a power outage that cut off communications in Donggala and surrounding areas. The Ministry of Communications is repairing 276 base stations.

Officials said that the aftershocks, the communication failures and the power outage made coordination of relief operations difficult.

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

"The 1.5 to 2 meter tsunami has receded," Dwikorita Karnawati, director of the Indonesian Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics, BMKG, told Reuters. "The situation is chaotic. People are running in the streets and the buildings have collapsed. There is a ship stranded.

The BMKG had previously issued a tsunami warning, but had lifted it into the hour.

Amateur images broadcast by local TV stations, which could not be immediately authenticated by Reuters, show water breaking in houses along the Palu coastline, scattering transport containers and flooding a mosque from the city.

The National Search and Rescue Agency will deploy a large ship and helicopters to facilitate the operation, said the agency's chief, Muhammad Syaugi, adding that he "n & # 39; had not been able to contact his team in Palu.

The armed forces and the police will also provide troops and equipment to support the emergency response, officials said.

The oil company Pertamina said that its fuel depot in Donggala was damaged during the incident, although there was no oil spill. Fuel tanks had moved in the earthquake and ship loading facilities were shut down, among other things.

According to the Ministry of Energy, no damage has been reported in the oil and gas fields in production in the region.

Palu, affected by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that killed a person in 2005, is a tourist resort located at the bottom of a narrow bay famous for its beaches and water sports.

In 2004, an earthquake in the Indonesian island north of Sumatra caused a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, claiming 226,000 lives in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

Some people said on Twitter that they could not contact their loved ones. "My family in Palu is inaccessible," said @noyvionella, a Twitter user.

The Palu airport was closed.

The region was hit by a lighter earthquake earlier in the day, which destroyed some homes, killed one person and injured at least 10 people in Donggala, authorities said.

The United States geological survey established the magnitude of the second earthquake at 7.5, after saying for the first time that the earthquake was 7.7.

"The aftershocks are continuing," said Dr. Nugroho. "The communication has been paralyzed for the moment, which has made coordination and reporting difficult with the region."

Indonesia is sitting on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

In July and August, a series of earthquakes killed nearly 500 people on Lombok Island, hundreds of kilometers southwest of Sulawesi.

Reuters