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(Update) The main airport of Palu is closed after the tsunami, which makes it difficult to assess the damage by the rescuers and provides the exact number of deaths caused by the earthquake
CONSEQUENCES. People pass corpses (blue blanket) one day after the tsunami that struck Palu on the island of Sulawesi on September 29, 2018.
Rescuers rushed to reach central tsunami-affected Indonesia and assessed the damage after a massive earthquake that caused several buildings to fall and sent residents fleeing their homes to the heights. Photo by Ola Gondronk / AFP
MAKASSAR, Indonesia (UPDATE) – An earthquake and tsunami hit large numbers of people in central Indonesia, an AFP photographer said on Saturday (September 29th) as rescue workers attempted to reach the region. disaster.
Photographs of Palu, which is home to about 350,000 people on the coast of the island of Sulawesi, showed partially covered bodies on the ground near the shore, the morning after tsunami waves reaching 1.5 meters (5 feet) ) in the city.
The tsunami was triggered by a strong earthquake that caused the fall of several buildings and sent residents fleeing their homes in search of a flooded land that crashed on Palu.
A dramatic video footage filmed from the top floor of a parking ramp in Palu, about 80 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, showed that waves of water had shot down several buildings and flooded a large mosque.
The shallow jolt of magnitude 7.5 was more powerful than a series of earthquakes that killed hundreds of people on the Indonesian island of Lombok in July and August.
People living hundreds of miles from the epicenter said to have been hit by massive jolts, hours after a minor jolt killed at least one person in the same part of the archipelago from Southeast Asia.
The quake hit central Sulawesi at a depth of 10 km just before 18:00 local time (11:00 GMT), the US Geological Survey announced. Such superficial earthquakes tend to be more destructive.
"It appears that many buildings collapsed during the earthquake," said the spokesman for the National Disaster Agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, in a statement.
"The residents panicked and scattered out of their homes," the statement added.
The images provided by the agency showed a badly damaged mall in Palu, where at least one floor had collapsed on the lower floor, while other photographs showed significant damage to buildings and big cracks on the sidewalks.
Search and rescue teams have been sent to hard-hit areas, Nugroho said.
Closed airport
The main airport of Palu – a city of 350,000 – was closed after the tsunami and is expected to remain closed for at least 24 hours.
Friday's jolt was centered 78 kilometers north of Palu, the capital of the central province of Sulawesi, but was felt in the far south of the island in its largest city Makassar and on the island. 39, neighboring island of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.
The first shock, which was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, took place as the evening prayers were about to begin in the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, the holiest day of the week. when mosques are particularly busy.
According to the USGS, tremors of similar magnitude can cause major damage to poorly constructed or poorly designed structures, including the overturning of chimneys, columns and walls.
Indonesia is one of the countries most exposed to natural disasters.
It is located on the Pacific "fire belt", where tectonic plates clash and where numerous volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
Earlier this year, a series of powerful earthquakes hit Lombok, killing more than 550 people on the island and near Sumbawa.
Some 1,500 people were injured and around 400,000 people were displaced after the destruction of their homes.
Indonesia has been hit by a series of other deadly earthquakes, including a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake that struck the coast of Sumatra in 2004.
This earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 people throughout the region, including 168,000 in Indonesia. – Rappler.com
