An aerial view of an earthquake-hit area of
Nias island. A huge earthquake off this northwest Indonesian island
killed at least 430 people, and possibly several
thousand.
NIAS ISLAND, Indonesia (AFP) - A huge earthquake off this northwest
Indonesian island killed at least 430 people, and possibly several
thousand, and triggered tsunami warnings which caused panic across
the Indian Ocean.
The epicenter of the quake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale was
just 200 miles (320 kilometres) from that of the December 26 quake
which sent giant waves crashing into 12 nations, killing over
273,000 people.
Indonesian officials said at least 430 people had been confirmed
dead on Nias and Simeulue islands off Sumatra. But Vice President
Yusuf Kalla told the BBC that reports from Nias indicated 1,000 to
2,000 people had died.
The undersea quake struck Monday night about 200 kilometers off the
west coast of Sumatra and prompted Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Sri
Lanka and Thailand, among others, to issue warnings of imminent
tsunamis.
Alerts rang out on television and radio, while police and local
residents tried to shepherd people to safety away from the coast
towards high ground.
But the giant tsunamis never materialised and three hours after the
quake Indonesia and Thailand gave the all-clear. Sri Lanka and
India followed several hours later.
While the region was spared a new tsunami horror, the earthquake
caused widespread destruction on Nias, an island of 700,000 people
which is popular with surfers.
Budi Atmaji Adiputro, chief of staff at the National Coordinating
Disaster Relief Agency, said 330 people had been found dead on the
island and more bodies were expected to turn up under the rubble of
collapsed buildings.
"I expect the number to increase because to collect bodies we have
to sift through the rubble," he told AFP.
The head of the health office in Sumatra's Aceh province, Mulya
Hasjmy, told AFP that a disaster taskforce in Simeulue had
accounted for 100 dead.
Survivors -- frail, weeping and swathed in bloody bandages --
described how they were trapped by falling rubble when the giant
tremor struck.
Some 20 people, mostly suffering from broken bones, deep cuts and
bruises were flown from Nias aboard two UN helicopters to the
Sumatra island city of Sibolga, where they were transferred to
hospital.
"I was fast asleep when the earthquake occurred but I woke up just
in time to escape from the crumbling roof of my dormitory," said
20-year-old student Serasi Hulu, who suffered a broken arm and
fingers.
Pale, bruised and visibly weak from his ordeal, Hulu said he had
tried to dash from his room but was pinned down by falling
masonry.
"Before I managed to get out of the house, part of the roof fell on
me and I was trapped for several hours along with two of my high
school mates," he told AFP. "I believe they may already have
died."
Oxfam International sent an assessment team to Nias by helicopter
from Banda Aceh in the tsunami-stricken province of Aceh on
Sumatra.
"The devastation is obvious as soon as you land," said Alessandra
Villas-Boas, a member of the team, which found widespread damage to
houses and infrastructure.
"Bodies are being pulled from the rubble as I speak," she said,
adding that the island's main town of Gunung Sitoli appeared to
have been one of the worst hit areas.
Some 20,000 people in the town were without water, the electricity
grid was also out of order and roads were badly damaged, the team
said.
"We had just ended the emergency relief in Aceh and Nias, we were
taken by surprise again by the earthquake in Nias and Simeulue,"
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after an
emergency cabinet meeting in Jakarta.
Condolences and relief offers flooded in from overseas.
Singapore said it had dispatched military helicopters and a team of
medical and rescue workers to Nias, while Japan offered to send
relief goods, paramedics and troops.
China announced it would donate 300,000 dollars to Indonesia.
Yudhoyono delayed a planned trip to Australia and was himself
making plans to visit Nias. Canberra promised one million dollars
(774,000 US) in aid.
A military official said a three-metre wave had smashed into a port
on Simeulue, causing extensive damage and unconfirmed reports of
casualties.
The earthquake evoked bitter memories of the December disaster in
which a 9.0-magnitude quake triggered waves 15 metres (50 feet)
high that roared across the Indian Ocean at speeds of up to 700
kilometres per hour.
Those waves killed more than 273,000 people including over 220,000
in Indonesia, 30,000 in Sri Lanka, 10,000 in India and 5,000 in
Thailand.
Some 10 billion dollars in aid was pledged to affected countries,
and governments promised to create a high-tech tsunami early
warning system for the Indian Ocean by mid-2006.
Although no formal warning system was yet in place, the Japan
Meteorological Agency and the International Tsunami Information
Center contacted countries around the Indian Ocean immediately
after detecting the huge quake.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the makeshift warning
system had worked well.
"Although our warning system is not yet complete, we managed to
alert people in enough time for them to seek safety," he
said.
Kerry Sieh, a seismologist with the United States Geological
Survey, said the quake was one of the top 10 most powerful in the
last century.
Tremors shook many parts of Sumatra for three minutes and rocked
the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Singapore where people
fled high-rise buildings.
"When the earthquake happened, I rode my motorcycle to the airport
because I was very afraid the tsunami would hit again," said
university student Heri in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's
devastated Aceh province.
In northwestern Sri Lanka people ran to temples and churches where
bells were rung to warn people to run to high ground. In the
resorts of southwest Thailand holidaymakers fled hotels as
television flashed warnings.
Hundreds of people, with children yanked from their beds and still
wearing pyjamas, gathered at the town hall on the Thai resort
island of Phuket.
In India's Tamil Nadu state radio stations warned people to move
away from the ocean.
"People are very tense as they fear that another tsunami is going
to hit our coasts. Many of our fishermen have gone to the sea and
we are praying for their safe return," Xavier Lawrence, a priest in
the town of Kanyakumari, told AFP.