Over 380 confirmed dead after 7.5 earthquake rocks Indonesia

By: S. Nicholls

At least 384 people have been killed and more than 350 injured after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday, the country’s disaster agency has confirmed.

Thousands of buildings were also destroyed by the quake, which was centered about 48 miles north of the city of Palu, according to the United States Geological Survey.

“We have found corpses from the earthquake as well as bodies swept up by the tsunami,” said Indonesia’s disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho on Saturday.

Preparations for a beach festival were being made in Palu when waves struck, he said, adding that houses had been swept away and families remain missing.

The death toll from the disasters are expected to rise, he continued.

Indonesia’s military dispatched cargo planes Saturday carrying medical supplies to affected areas, but rescue efforts have been hampered after communications around Palu and a nearby fishing village, Donggala, which lies close to the earthquake’s epicentre, had been downed.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes. Friday’s tremors came weeks after 460 people were killed following an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok, destroying tens of thousands of buildings and displacing over 400,000 people.