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10-Foot Tsunami Sweeps Away Houses in Indonesia 10-Foot Tsunami Sweeps Away Houses in Indonesia
(about 4 hours later)
Jakarta, Indonesia — JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A powerful earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday, triggering a 10-foot tsunami that an official said swept away houses in at least two cities. A tsunami smashed into Sulawesi island in Indonesia on Friday, destroying buildings in the city of Palu shortly after the region was struck by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. .
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said that the tsunami hit Palu, the capital of central Sulawesi province, and a smaller city, Donggala. Authorities estimated the tsunami’s waves to be about 10 feet high, but a cellphone video reported to be taken in Palu showed a wave that seemed even higher crashing over the roofs of one-story buildings. The buildings then disappear beneath the water.
He said houses were swept away and families were reported missing. It was difficult to immediately assess the extent of the casualties or the damage that was done because communications were disrupted. It is unclear if whether everyone in the area evacuated in time.
Indonesian TV showed a smartphone video of a powerful wave hitting Palu as people screamed and ran in fear. The water smashed into buildings, including a large mosque. The spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said houses were swept away and families were reported missing, according to The Associated Press. It was difficult to immediately assess the extent of the casualties or the damage that was done because communications were disrupted.
The region was rocked by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake Friday and numerous strong aftershocks including one of magnitude 6.7. The quake, which also caused damage, struck 48 miles north of Palu, according to the United States Geological Survey. The tsunami was reported to hit at least one other community called Donggala.
The chief of the meteorology and geophysics agency, Dwikorita Karnawati, said the tsunami waves were 1.6 feet to 10 feet high. She said the tsunami warning triggered by the biggest quake was in place for about half an hour. Earlier in the day, a quake measuring 6.1 had hit the island of Sulawesi, and authorities reported that several people had died and 10 were injured, according to the AP.
Palu’s airport halted operations due to earthquake damage, according to AirNav, which oversees airline traffic in Indonesia. After the larger quake hit the region, the authorities issued a tsunami warning. They said it was lifted after the tsunami reached land.
Central Sulawesi was hit earlier Friday by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that, based on preliminary information, killed one person, injured 10 and damaged dozens of houses. The brief video said to be from Palu appears to have been taken from the top of a building across from the beach. The authenticity of the video has not been confirmed by government officials, but it is consistent with other imagery of the tsunami.
Television footage showed people running into the streets. Woman and children wailed hysterically in a video distributed by the disaster agency, which also released a photo showing a heavily damaged department store. The video starts by showing that coastal buildings and a major street below were already flooded, possibly indicating that an initial wave had already hit the coast. Debris was floating in the water but no people were visible. A large wave can be seen rolling toward the shore.
“All the things in my house were swaying and the quake left a small crack on my wall,” Donggala resident Mohammad Fikri said by telephone. As the wave struck, people on top of the building shouted and scrambled to get away from the wall of water. The water surged around a mosque, whose large green dome had collapsed, probably from the quakes.
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. The authorities said Palu’s airport would be closed until Saturday evening because of damage from the quakes.
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. Indonesia, a vast archipelago with about 17,500 islands, is part of the Ring of Fire, an area susceptible to earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Numerous earthquakes have struck the region in recent months. One of the biggest was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that hit Lombok and the Gili islands southwest of Sulawesi on August 5, killing more than 460 people.
In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra causing a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean and killing about 230,000 people, most of them in Indonesia.