At least 54 dead, dozens missing after quake hits Indonesia
A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit the northern Indonesian province of Aceh early Wednesday, causing buildings to collapse and sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets; search and rescue forces frantically dig through the debris in search for survivors.
JAKARTA - At least 54 people were killed, and dozens were missing after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit the northern Indonesian province of Aceh on Wednesday, officials said, collapsing buildings and sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets.
Maj. Gen. Tatang Sulaiman, the army chief in Aceh, said 52 have died in Pidie Jaya, the district closest to the epicenter of the undersea quake. A local health agency said eight were young children.
Another two people died in neighboring Bireuen district, one of them a teacher at an Islamic building school, who died after being hit by falling debris, according to health worker Achmad Taufiq.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference that the death toll could increase.
An agency document said 273 people were injured and about a quarter of them seriously. Some 245 buildings were seriously damaged or destroyed, mostly in Pidie Jaya, including 14 mosques and the remainder largely dwellings and shop houses. Roads also cracked and power poles toppled over.
In the capital Jakarta, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said he has ordered all government agencies to take part in the rescue efforts.
A frantic rescue effort involving dozens of villagers, soldiers and police was underway in Meureudu, a severely affected town in Pidie Jaya district, which was closest to the quake's epicenter. Excavators and rescuers were trying to remove debris from shop and other buildings where people were believed buried.
"Dozens are missing but we don't have accurate data on the total yet," said Khairul Nova, an official at the Aceh search and rescue agency.
Wednesday's quake hit the east coast of the province, about 170 km (105 miles) from Banda Aceh.
More than 40 buildings including mosques, stores and homes were flattened in the Pidie Jaya district, which located 18 kilometers (11 miles) southwest of the epicenter, according to Pidie Jaya District chief Aiyub Abbas. Roads cracked and power poles toppled over. Abbas said there is an urgent need for excavation equipment to move heavy debris and emergency supplies.
Images on television and social media showed rescue personnel taking bodies in black bags away from the rubble, victims being rushed to hospital, flattened buildings and fallen electricity poles, and people gathering outside at street corners.
"The earthquake was felt strongly and many people panicked and rushed outdoors as houses collapsed," Nugroho said.
Heavy machinery was being used in the search for victims, said Risky Hidayat, another search and rescue official in Aceh.
A volunteer for the Indonesian Red Crescent in Pidie Jaya regency in Aceh described scenes of heavy damage and said many people had been injured.
"There isn't enough medical staff around," the Red Crescent's Muklis, who like many Indonesians uses one name, told TVOne.
The US Geological Survey said the shallow 6.5 magnitude earthquake that struck at 5:03am (10:03pm GMT Tuesday) was centered about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Reuleut, a town in northern Aceh, at a depth of 17 kilometers (11 miles). It did not generate a tsunami.
At least five aftershocks were felt in the hours after the initial quake, the disaster management agency said.
Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, was devastated by a massive 9.2 magnitude earthquake, which triggered a tsunami centred on its western coast near the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, on December 26, 2004. The disaster wiped out entire communities in Indonesia and other countries around the Indian Ocean
The world's largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. The 2004 tsunami killed a total of 230,000 people in a dozen countries, with Indonesia being hit the hardest—more than 120,000 people were killed in Aceh alone.
