Killer wave creates hell on earth in paradise
THE sun had just slipped behind the mountains, leaving a soft pink glow as the blue sea melted into the horizon. It could have been a postcard from a tropical paradise, except for the long white wave stretching the width of the bay – getting larger and closer with each passing second.
By the time the wall of frothing water slammed into the city of Palu off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Friday, it was three metres high.
The tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, destroyed the idyllic scene in seconds, leaving at least 390 people dead. A video clip broadcast on Indonesian TV showed water swallowing an entire row of buildings and gushing into streets as onlookers ran shrieking in terror.
Photos showed twisted tin and wood splinters floating alongside cars and motorbikes that had been tossed like toys. A shopping mall was reduced to rubble.
Images yesterday also showed bodies draped in blue tarps on roads near the beach, while others were laid out in rows on concrete foundations. One man carried a dead child through the debris.
Experts said the long, narrow bay running into Palu, a city of 380,000, squeezed the tsunami into a tight space, likely making the waves more dangerous.
‘Because of the bay, all the water comes there and collects together. And then it makes it higher, said Nazli Ismail, a geophysicist at the University of Syiah Kuala in Banda Aceh in Sumatra, where a magnitude 9.1 earthquake spawned a tsunami in 2004, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo said the waves reached as high as six metres in at least one area, according to a report relayed by a man who called to say he survived only by climbing and clinging on to a tree.
The cities of Donggala and Mamuju were also hit, but they had not yet been reached. Roads were impassable, cut off by debris, and communications were nearly impossible.
Hospitals in Palu were swamped with patients lying on the ground hooked to drips. They were being treated outdoors due to continuing strong aftershocks. Many residents were also sleeping outside, afraid to return indoors.
A massive yellow suspension bridge was toppled – either by the earthquake or tsunami – and left lying on its side in the water.
Ismail said he was surprised that a tsunami was generated off the coast of central Sulawesi, which sits on a strike-slip fault, producing earthquakes that typically move in a horizontal motion and do not usually displace large amounts of water.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the ‘Ring of Fire’, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.