Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
■ Residents too afraid to sleep indoors were camped out in the darkness one day after a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia.
Waves up to 20 feet high hit residents of Sulawesi
PALU, Indonesia — Residents too afraid to sleep indoors camped out in the darkness Saturday while victims recounted harrowing stories of being separated from their loved ones a day after a powerful earthquake triggered a tsunami that unleashed waves as high as 20 feet, killing hundreds on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
The official death toll stood at 384, with all of the fatalities coming in the hard-hit city of Palu, but it was expected to rise once rescuers reached surrounding coastal areas, said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said others were unaccounted for, without giving an estimate.
The nearby cities of Donggala and Mamuju were also ravaged, but little information was available because of damaged roads and disrupted telecommunications.
Nugroho said “tens to hundreds” of people had been taking part in a beach festival in Palu when the tsunami struck at dusk Friday. Their fate was unknown.
Hundreds of people were injured, and hospitals, damaged by the magnitude 7.5 quake, were overwhelmed.
It’s the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
Palu, which has more than 380,000 people, was strewn with debris from the earthquake and tsunami.
The city is built around a narrow bay that apparently magnified the force of the tsunami waters as they raced into the tight inlet.
The earthquake left mangled buildings with collapsed awnings and rebar sticking out of concrete like antennae. Roads were buckled and cracked. The tsunami created even more destruction.
Roads and infrastructure are poor in many areas of Indonesia, making access difficult even in the best of conditions.