PALU, Indonesia: The tsunami that hit two cities in Sulawesi swept away buildings and pulverised a substantial bridge, dumping victims caught in its relentless path across a devastated landscape that rescuers were struggling to reach on Saturday.
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said 384 people were known to have died in Palu, where preparations for a beach festival had been under way when the tsunami hit on Friday evening, on the heels of a 7.5-magnitude earthquake. He said 540 people were injured and 29 were still missing.
But those figures applied to Palu alone, and there were other vulnerable coastal areas where communications were down. Officials had been unable to make contact with Donggala, a fishing community near Palu that was also reported to have been hit by the tsunami.
Dr Komang Adi Sujendra, the director of Undata Hospital in Palu, said in a video message on Saturday morning that the area had no electricity, that phone and internet service had been disrupted and road access was limited. He sought help from the public, saying that “we hope to build a field hospital immediately”.
Sutopo estimated the height of the tsunami’s waves to be about five metres, and a mobile-phone video reported to have been taken in Palu showed a wave crashing over the roofs of one-storey buildings. The buildings then disappear beneath the water.
Sutopo said thousands of houses and other buildings in Palu had been destroyed, including an 80-room hotel.
“We have found corpses from the earthquake as well as bodies swept up by the tsunami,” he said in a television interview.
The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and smashed into two cities and several settlements at dusk on Friday.
Palu, which has more than 380,000 people, was strewn with debris from collapsed buildings. A mosque heavily damaged by the quake was half submerged and a shopping mall was reduced to a crumpled hulk. Bodies lay partially covered by tarpaulins and a man carried a dead child through the wreckage.
Experts said the long, narrow bay running into Palu squeezed the tsunami into a tight space, making the waves more dangerous.
“Because of the bay, all the water comes there and collects together. And then it makes it higher,” said Nazli Ismail, a geophysicist at the University of Syiah Kuala in Banda Aceh on Sumatra, where a magnitude 9.1 earthquake spawned a tsunami in 2004, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
In nearby Donggala, home to nearly 300,000 people, a large bridge with yellow arches that spanned a coastal river had collapsed (continued below).
WATCH: The moment a tsunami slammed into the Indonesian city of Palu after a major earthquake, as seen in footage circulating online https://t.co/fx6jdexOzk pic.twitter.com/m5WiR3KvIS
— Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia) September 28, 2018
Hospitals in Palu were swamped with patients lying on the ground hooked to drips. They were being treated outdoors due to continuing strong aftershocks. Many residents in the area were also sleeping outside, too afraid to return indoors.
A massive yellow suspension bridge crossing an estuary feeding into the bay was toppled — either by the earthquake or tsunami — and left lying on its side in the water.
Sutopo said that essential aircraft could land at the Palu airport, though AirNav, which oversees aircraft navigation, said the runway was cracked and the control tower damaged.
AirNav said one of its air traffic controllers, aged 21, died in the quake after staying in the tower to ensure a flight he had just cleared for departure got airborne safely. It did.
President Joko Widodo on Friday night said he had instructed the security minister to coordinate the government's response to a quake and tsunami that hit central Sulawesi.
He told reporters in his hometown of Solo that he had called on the country's military chief help with search and rescue efforts.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN officials were in contact with Indonesian authorities and “stand ready to provide support as required”.
The US Geological Survey said the strongest quake on Friday had a magnitude of 7.5 and was centred at a depth of 10km, about 55 kilometres northeast of Donggala.
“Many houses have collapsed,” said an official with the local disaster agency, Akris.
“It happened while we still have difficulties in collecting data from nine villages affected by the first quake,” he told The Associated Press. “People ran out in panic.”
Sutopo said people needed to remain vigilant. “It is better not to be in a house or building because the potential for aftershocks can be dangerous. People are encouraged to gather in safe areas. Avoid the slopes of hills.”
Yaa Allah Yaa Robb ... keadaan Pantai Kota Palu Pasca Gempa,Tsunami Bangunan” Rata dg Tanah..#DoaUntukPaluDonggala #PrayforSulteng#PrayForPalu#prayfordonggala#PaluBerduka pic.twitter.com/bncuX9lzYg
— (@pemudimu) September 29, 2018
