JAKARTA – A tsunami which pounded remote islands in western Indonesia following an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra killed more than 100 people, officials said yesterday, and hundreds more were missing.
The 7.5-magnitude quake hit 78km (48.5 miles) west of South Pagai, one of the Mentawai islands, late on Monday. Local politician Hendri Dori Satoko told Metro TV the latest toll was 108 dead and 502 missing.
Most buildings in the coastal village of Betu Monga were destroyed, said Hardimansyah, an official with the regional branch of the Department of Fisheries.
“Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found; 160 are still missing, mostly women and children,” he said.
“We have people reporting to the security post here that they could not hold on to their children, that they were swept away. A lot of people are crying.”
Hardimansyah said 80 per cent of the houses in the area were damaged and food supplies were low.
A tourist boat carrying eight to 10 Australians had been out of radio contact since the quake, Australia’s department of foreign affairs and trade said in a statement.
The Macaronis surfing resort on North Pagai island was also hit. In an official press release, World Surfaris said Macaronis had “ experienced a level of devastation that has rendered the resort inoperable”.
Reports via Facebook from a surfer at the resort suggested all villas had been “wiped out” by the tsunami.
A report posted on the Surfaid website by one of the aid organisation’s staff members described a three-metre-high tsunami crashing through the resort and boats knocking together, then bursting into flames.
Guests and crew from one boat were washed into the jungle and took more than an hour to find their way back to the beach, staff member Tom Plummer said.
In December 2004, a tsunami caused by an earthquake of more than nine magnitude off Sumatra killed more than 226,000 people. It was the deadliest tsunami on record.
Meanwhile the country’s most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, 800 miles to the east, started to erupt at dusk yesterday as scientists warned that pressure building beneath its lava dome could trigger one of the most powerful blasts in years.
The peak of Mount Merapi was clouded with smoke, making it impossible to see if lava was spewing out, but ash was raining down on frightened residents.
Authorities had been trying since Monday to evacuate more than 11,000 villagers living on the volcano’s slopes, after the alert status was raised to the highest level.
Adi Mulyanto, an emergency ward doctor at the Panti Nugroho hospital in Sleman, said at least six people had been badly burned by hot air. “Three of those people have been rushed to hospital with burns to more than 80 per cent of their bodies,” he said.
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity due to its location on the Pacific “ring of fire” – a series of fault lines stretching from the western hemisphere through Japan and southeast Asia. – (Reuters, AP)