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Massive aftershocks shake Indonesia
Huge aftershocks rumbled across Indonesia's Sumatra island on Thursday, as rescue teams sped to the area after a massive 8.4-magnitude earthquake killed at least six people.
The follow-on shocks, including one as strong as magnitude 7.8, drew new tsunami warnings from Indonesian authorities and panicked thousands of people who had already spent the night outdoors afraid of being buried alive.
Dozens of people were also reported injured in Wednesday night's huge quake, and officials said they feared the death toll could still rise. In many places, phone lines and electricity were down.
The quake was strong enough to shake buildings in Thailand and Malaysia, and set off a tsunami alert as far away as eastern Africa -- raising memories of the December 2004 tsunami catastrophe that killed 220,000 people.
But the initial reports from some parts of the Sumatran coast suggested that this nation of 17,000 islands, victim of some of the world's deadliest earthquakes in the past, may have been spared the worst.
The healthy ministry's crisis centre said six people had been confirmed dead and at least 38 had been injured in the quake, which hit underwater some 300 kilometres (185 miles) off the Sumatran town of Bengkulu.
"My wife was washing the dishes and my two sons were taking a bath," said Samsul Anwar, sitting in a tent at the main hospital in the town. He had rushed home when he felt the ground shake violently.
"The roof of the house had collapsed, hitting my wife in the head," Anwar said, comforting his son lying injured on a stretcher. "She is dead."
Fearing any further damage, hospital authorities have moved intensive care patients and others to outdoor tents.
"I was running to avoid collapsing walls but I fell down and my shoulder hit a rock," said another patient, 26-year-old Hari.
"People were afraid because we heard the tsunami warning, so we were trying to get quickly to higher ground," he said.
The powerful quake, which came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, toppled buildings and split open others in at least one town, Mukomuko, on Sumatra's western coast, local police said.
On Wednesday, the US Geological Survey gradually upgraded the strength of the quake from 7.9 to 8.2 to 8.4. Any quake over 7.0 is considered strong enough to cause massive destruction and heavy loss of life.
The quake was powerful enough to slosh the water out of swimming pools in Jakarta, hundreds of kilometres away, and scare office workers into racing out of their high-rise towers in Malaysia.
In Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of people along the coast went running for higher ground after the government issued a tsunami warning on Wednesday night.
"Around half-a-million have left their homes," said Ashrad Shamim, a top official from the district of Chittagong city. "There's a panic."
Tsunami alerts were also issued Wednesday night in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Indonesian authorities briefly issued two new alerts on Thursday morning, and Australia issued one for its Indian Ocean territories.
Indonesia lost 168,000 people in the province of Aceh alone in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster.
The country sits on the volatile "Ring of Fire", a massive zone of volcanic instability that encircles the Pacific.
Source
Huge aftershocks rumbled across Indonesia's Sumatra island on Thursday, as rescue teams sped to the area after a massive 8.4-magnitude earthquake killed at least six people.
The follow-on shocks, including one as strong as magnitude 7.8, drew new tsunami warnings from Indonesian authorities and panicked thousands of people who had already spent the night outdoors afraid of being buried alive.
Dozens of people were also reported injured in Wednesday night's huge quake, and officials said they feared the death toll could still rise. In many places, phone lines and electricity were down.
The quake was strong enough to shake buildings in Thailand and Malaysia, and set off a tsunami alert as far away as eastern Africa -- raising memories of the December 2004 tsunami catastrophe that killed 220,000 people.
But the initial reports from some parts of the Sumatran coast suggested that this nation of 17,000 islands, victim of some of the world's deadliest earthquakes in the past, may have been spared the worst.
The healthy ministry's crisis centre said six people had been confirmed dead and at least 38 had been injured in the quake, which hit underwater some 300 kilometres (185 miles) off the Sumatran town of Bengkulu.
"My wife was washing the dishes and my two sons were taking a bath," said Samsul Anwar, sitting in a tent at the main hospital in the town. He had rushed home when he felt the ground shake violently.
"The roof of the house had collapsed, hitting my wife in the head," Anwar said, comforting his son lying injured on a stretcher. "She is dead."
Fearing any further damage, hospital authorities have moved intensive care patients and others to outdoor tents.
"I was running to avoid collapsing walls but I fell down and my shoulder hit a rock," said another patient, 26-year-old Hari.
"People were afraid because we heard the tsunami warning, so we were trying to get quickly to higher ground," he said.
The powerful quake, which came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, toppled buildings and split open others in at least one town, Mukomuko, on Sumatra's western coast, local police said.
On Wednesday, the US Geological Survey gradually upgraded the strength of the quake from 7.9 to 8.2 to 8.4. Any quake over 7.0 is considered strong enough to cause massive destruction and heavy loss of life.
The quake was powerful enough to slosh the water out of swimming pools in Jakarta, hundreds of kilometres away, and scare office workers into racing out of their high-rise towers in Malaysia.
In Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of people along the coast went running for higher ground after the government issued a tsunami warning on Wednesday night.
"Around half-a-million have left their homes," said Ashrad Shamim, a top official from the district of Chittagong city. "There's a panic."
Tsunami alerts were also issued Wednesday night in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Indonesian authorities briefly issued two new alerts on Thursday morning, and Australia issued one for its Indian Ocean territories.
Indonesia lost 168,000 people in the province of Aceh alone in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster.
The country sits on the volatile "Ring of Fire", a massive zone of volcanic instability that encircles the Pacific.
Source
