Scores dead in Aceh quake
More than 40 mosques, stores and homes were flattened in early morning tremor
Astrong undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Aceh province early yesterday, killing at least 97 people and causing dozens of buildings to collapse.
The quake struck at 5.03am local time. Four people had been rescued from the rubble by late last night NZT.
A frantic rescue effort involving dozens of villagers, soldiers and police was under way in Meureudu, a severely affected town in Pidie Jaya district. Three excavators were trying to remove debris from shop houses where three people were believed buried, said Suyatno, who heads Aceh’s search and rescue agency.
District chief Aiyub Abbas said hundreds of people in the district have been injured and more than 40 buildings including mosques, stores and homes were flattened.
The district is 18km southwest of the epicentre.
Abbas said at least 52 people had 5.03am, Indonesian time THAILAND MALAYSIA been killed in that district alone. A local health office said eight were young children.
The US Geological Survey said the shallow 6.4-magnitude earthquake was centred about 10km north of Reuleut, a town in northern Aceh, at a depth of 17km. There was no risk of a tsunami. Abbas said there was an urgent need for excavation equipment to move heavy debris and emergency supplies.
TV footage showed rescue workers taking bodies in black bags away from the rubble.
In the nearby district of Bireuen, a teacher at an Islamic building school died after being hit by falling debris, said health worker Achmad Taufiq.
About 20 people were being treated at a health centre and one person was moved to a hospital because of broken bones and a head injury, said Taufiq.
Residents of the nearby town of Lhokseumawe ran out of their houses in panic during the quake and many people fled to higher ground.
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.
On Boxing Day in December 2004, a massive earthquake off Sumatra Island triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries around the region.
More than 160,000 people died in Indonesia alone, and most of those deaths were in Aceh.