Powerful earthquake rocks central Sulawesi in Indonesia

INDONESIA’S geophysics agency says a powerful Sulawesi earthquake caused a tsunami, apparently after the agency lifted a tsunami warning.

Hary Tirto Djatmiko confirmed that a tsunami occurred.

He said the agency was still collecting information and would release it after confirming its accuracy.

Indonesian TV showed a smartphone video of a powerful wave hitting the provincial capital, Palu, with people screaming and running in fear.

The footage purportedly shows a number of small restaurants near the Palu Grand Mall swept away by the wave, which some have referred to as a tsunami online.

Indonesian disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho says the tsunami hit the provincial capital of Palu and another city, Donggala.

“All national potential will be deployed, and tomorrow morning we will deploy Hercules and helicopters to provide assistance in tsunami-affected areas.”

He said in a live TV interview that houses were swept away and families are reported missing.

At least one person has been confirmed dead so far.

Head of Indonesia’s Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati said a 1.5- to two-metre tsunami had receded. “The situation is chaotic, people are running on the streets and buildings collapsed,” she said.

“There is a ship washed ashore.”

The strongest of two major quakes had a magnitude of 7.5 and was centred at a depth of 10km about 56km northeast of the central Sulawesi town of Donggala.

An official with the local disaster agency, Akris, said “many houses have collapsed.”

“It happened while we still have difficulties in collecting data from nine villages affected by the first quake,” he told The Associated Press.

“People ran out in panic.”

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said communications with the region are disrupted.

“Our early estimation, based on experience, is that it caused widespread damage, beginning from (the provincial capital) Palunorthward to Donggala,” he told MetroTV in an interview.

The area was hit earlier on Friday by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that based on preliminary information killed one person, injured 10 and damaged dozens of houses.

“The victim was hit by a collapsed building,” the agency said in a statement.

Donggala resident Mohammad Fikri said by telephone that he ran from his house but there wasn’t great panic in his neighbourhood.

“All the things in my house were swaying and the quake left a small crack on my wall,” he said.

“But this was not the first time. Last week we felt an earthquake that had a stronger tremor so this time we didn’t panic,just avoided the buildings and now everything has returned to normal,” Mr Fikri said.

The disaster agency said the tremor was felt for about 10 seconds in Donggala. Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the PacificBasin.

In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

More to come