A remote fishing village is feared to have been wiped out after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia, killing at least 384.
More than 600,000 people live in the coastal cities of Donggala and Palu, with fears of more casualties as disaster response units struggle to access the cut-off Donggala.
The devastating tsunami ripped through the Pacific Ring of Fire and crashed into Palu City on Friday, killing almost 400 and injuring some 540 others.
More than 600,000 people live in Donggala and Palu, with fears of catastrophic casualties following the disaster. The devastating tsunami ripped through the Pacific Ring of Fire and crashed into Palu City on Friday, killing at least 384
The ruins and debris at the coast of Palu, a city in the central Indonesian Island of Sulawesi, the day after the tsunami. People began clearing the site and covering the bodies (blue cover) of the victims
The disaster mitigation agency has not been able to get any information from the fishing town of Donggala, closer to the epicentre of the quake 16 miles away.
The quake and tsunami caused a major power outage that cut communications around Palu and on Saturday authorities were still having difficulties coordinating rescue efforts, which was also hampered overnight by darkness.
People in Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi provinces were told to evacuate to higher ground, though it remains unclear as to whether people remained in their homes because of the contradicting government advice.
Residents make their way along a street full of debris, including the wreckage of a shipping container. Power lines have come down and in the background is a mosque which was a badly damaged by the 10ft waves
A man stands amid the damage caused by the tsunami. Debris litters the ground and several buildings have caved in, while a car has flipped over
‘There are reports that many buildings collapsed in the earthquake,’ Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency BNPB said in news briefing in Jakarta.
‘Residents panicked and scattered out of their homes.’
Sulawesi is the fourth largest Indonesian island and is home to around 18million people – all of whom have been put on alert following the quake on Friday.
Footage posted on Twitter show the five-foot-high wave approaching the shore and breaking over buildings
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes. In August, a series of major quakes killed over 500 people in the tourist island of Lombok
The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude of the second quake at a strong 7.5, after first saying it was 7.7.
An earlier 6.1 magnitude quake destroyed some houses, killing one person and injuring at least 10, authorities said.
‘The quake was felt very strongly, we expects more damage and more victims,’ Nugroho said.