Strong quake in Indonesia’s Sulawesi kills at least 34 and injures hundreds

Indonesia was shaken by a 6.2-magnitude earthquake today which killed at least 34 people and injured more than 600 others amid fears that the dozens of aftershocks would cause a tsunami. 

Victims were trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings in the city of Mamuju, with rescuers searching for more than a dozen patients and staff in the wreckage of a destroyed hospital. 

The tremor on Sulawesi island triggered panic among terrified residents as forecasters warned that the aftershocks ‘could be as strong, or stronger, than this morning’s quake’. 

‘There is potential for a tsunami from subsequent aftershocks… Don’t wait for a tsunami first because they can happen very quickly,’ said Dwikorita Karnawati, chief of Indonesias’ meteorological agency.  

Rescuers gather as a collapsed building in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, after this morning’s quake

Workers from Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency look for quake survivors in Mamuju

The epicentre of the quake was nearly four northeast of Majene city at a depth of around six miles.

‘The latest information we have is that 26 people are dead… in Mamuju city,’ said Ali Rahman, head of the local disaster mitigation agency, adding ‘that number could grow’.

‘Many of the dead are buried under rubble,’ he said.

Separately, the national disaster agency said at least eight people had died in an area south of Mamuju, a city of some 110,000 in West Sulawesi province, bringing the total death toll to 34.

Rescuers were searching for more than a dozen patients and staff trapped beneath the rubble of the levelled Mamuju hospital.

Location of the earthquake’s epicenter in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Thousands had fled their homes to seek safety when the quake hit just after 1am local time on Friday morning, damaging at least 60 homes, the agency said.

The quake was felt strongly for about seven seconds but did not trigger a tsunami warning.

Videos on social media showed residents fleeing to higher ground on motorcycles, and a child trapped under the rubble as people tried to remove debris with their bare hands.

Some buildings were badly damaged, including two hotels, the governor’s office and a mall, Sudirman Samual, a journalist based in Mamuju, north of the epicentre, told Reuters.

At least one route into Mamuju had been cut off, he said, due to damage to a bridge.

Hours earlier on Thursday, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck in the same district damaging several houses.

Many buildings in the city of Mamuju were destroyed in the quake, leaving desperate survivors searching the rubble for missing people

Indonesia’s disaster agency said a series of quakes in the past 24 hours had caused at least three landslides, and the electricity supply had been cut.

Straddling the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, Indonesia, a nation of high tectonic activity, is regularly hit by earthquakes.

In 2018, a devastating 6.2-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami struck the city of Palu, in Sulawesi, killing thousands of people.