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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Indonesia quake kills 75, thousands trapped
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-01 00:40
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told MetroTV that two hospitals and a mall collapsed in Padang. "This is a high-scale disaster, more powerful than the earthquake in Yogyakarta in 2006 when more than 3,000 people died," Supari said, referring to a major city on the main Indonesian island of Java. Hospitals struggled to treat the injured as their relatives hovered nearby. Indonesia's government announced $10 million in emergency response aid and medical teams and military planes were being dispatched to set up field hospitals and distribute tents, medicine and food rations. Members of the Cabinet were preparing for the possibility of thousands of deaths.
"Many buildings are badly damaged, including hotels and mosques," said Wandono, an official at Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta, citing reports from residents. Kalla said the worst-affected area was Pariaman, a coastal town about 40 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Padang. He gave no details on destruction or deaths there. Local television reported more than two dozen landslides. Some blocked roads, causing miles-long traffic jams of cars and trucks. On Tuesday, a powerful earthquake off the South Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga - thousands of miles (kilometers) from Indonesia - created tsunami that killed more than 100 people. Experts said the seismic events were not related. Both Indonesia's Aceh province, which was devastated in the 2004 tsunami with 130,00 dead, and Padang lie along the same fault. It runs the along the west coast of Sumatra and is the meeting point of the Eurasian and Pacific tectonic plates, which have been pushing against each other for millions of years, causing huge stress to build up. Scientists have long suggested Padang would suffer a similar fate to Aceh in the coming decades. Some predictions said 60,000 people would be killed - mostly by giant waves generated by an undersea quake. The dire predictions spread alarm across Padang, which was struck by a 8.4 magnitude earthquake in 2007 that killed dozens of people. Indonesia, a vast archipelago with more than 17,000 islands and a population of 235 million, straddles continental plates and is prone to seismic activity along what is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.
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