Quake Kills at Least 300 on Indonesian Island
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 at 9:45 am in Current Events
Vice president says up to 2,000 could be dead
Monday, March 28, 2005 Posted: 8:22 PM EST (0122 GMT) (CNN) — A major earthquake struck off the west coast of Indonesia late Monday, killing hundreds, but fears of another tsunami like those that devastated the region in late December faded early Tuesday.
On Indonesia’s Nias Island at least 300 people died and hundreds more were reported injured or trapped, said government spokesman Agus Mendrova.
But international news agencies report that between 1,000 and 2,000 people may have been killed on Nias Island.
It is predicted — and it’s still a rough estimate — that the number of the victims of dead may be between 1,000 and 2,000,” Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the el-Shinta radio station, according to The Associated Press.
Between 500 and 1,000 homes were destroyed, and the island’s public market was ablaze, Mendrova said.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 people ran to hilltops for safety in case of a tsunami, Mendrova said. Many of the doctors and nurses who normally would staff the hospital fled to higher ground.
“We have not heard of any tsunami hitting anywhere,” Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, told CNN from New York nearly six hours after the temblor struck.
Still, Egeland said, the earthquake itself was responsible for casualties on islands close to the epicenter.
Dozens of aid officials met overnight in Sumatra to plan a course of action after daylight breaks in the region, Egeland said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States is moving into “battle mode” in the wake of the quake, alerting all the U.S. posts in the region and reaching out to aid workers. (Full story)
There was a report of heavy damage on Simeulue Island in Indonesia, said Bernd Schell, head of tsunami operations for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Speaking from southern Aceh, Schell said “heavy, heavy shaking” lasted about three minutes.
Based on the size of the earthquake, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration initially urged residents within 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) of the epicenter to evacuate coastal regions.
But no tsunamis were reported along Indonesia’s island coasts, while India, Malaysia and Thailand canceled tsunami warnings early Tuesday.
The quake’s magnitude was variously reported by monitoring agencies as 8.7 and 8.5. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the former after initially putting the magnitude at 8.2; the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported the latter.
In the following hours, a series of smaller earthquakes — one a magnitude 6.7 — struck the region, the USGS said.
The main jolt was located near the coast of northern Sumatra, about 125 miles west northwest of Sibolga, and about 880 miles northwest of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was 30 kilometers deep.
The quake struck at 11:09 p.m. (11:09 a.m. ET). It was felt in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and as far north as Bangkok, Thailand.
