A strong, shallow earthquake shook Sulawesi Island in Indonesia just after midnight on Friday, toppling houses and buildings, causing landslides and killing at least 34 people.
More than 600 people were injured during the 6.2 magnitude earthquake, which left people fleeing in the dark. Authorities continued to gather information on the full extent of the casualties and damage in the affected areas.
There were reports of many people trapped in the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings.
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In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl who was trapped in the wreckage of a house called for help, saying she had also caught the sound of other family members. “Please help me, it hurts,” the girl told rescuers, who replied that they desperately wanted to help her.
Rescuers said an excavator was needed to rescue the girl and others who had collapsed in buildings. Other photos damaged and cut off a cut-off bridge and houses. TV stations reported the earthquake damaged part of a hospital and patients were relocated to an emergency tent outside.
Another video shows a father crying and asking for help rescuing his children buried under their converted home. “They were trapped inside, please help,” he cried.
Thousands of displaced people were evacuated to temporary shelters.
The US earthquake centered 36 kilometers (22 miles) south of the Mamuju district of West Sulawesi province, at a depth of 18 kilometers.
The Indonesian disaster agency said the death toll had risen to 34 when rescuers in Mamuju found 26 bodies trapped in the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings.
The agency said in a statement that eight people had been killed and 637 others injured in Mamuju’s neighboring district of Majene.
At least 300 homes and a health clinic are said to have been damaged and about 15,000 people are being housed in temporary shelters in the district. Power and telephones were down in many areas.
West Sulawesi administrative secretary Muhammad Idris told TVOne that the governor’s office was among those that collapsed in Mamuju, the provincial capital, and that many people were trapped there.
Rescuers help a survivor from the ruins of a government building that collapsed during an earthquake in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Friday, January 15, 2021. (AP Photo / Azhari Surahman)
Rescuer Saidar Rahmanjaya said a lack of heavy equipment hampered the operation to clear the debris from collapsing homes and buildings. He said his team was rescuing 20 people trapped in eight buildings, including in the governor’s office, a hospital and hotels.
“We are racing against time to save them,” Rahmanjaya said.
Family members cry as they watch as rescuers retrieve the body of a loved one from a damaged house in the ruined Mamuju. It was placed in an orange body bag and taken away for burial.
“Oh my God, why did we have to go through this?” calls Rina, who uses a name. “I can not save my dear sister … forgive me, sister, forgive us, God!”
President Joko Widodo said in a televised speech that he had ordered his social minister and the heads of the army, police and disaster agency to carry out emergency response measures and search and rescue operations as soon as possible.
“On behalf of the government and all Indonesian people, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims,” Widodo said.
Rescuers carry a body bag with an earthquake victim in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, Friday, January 15, 2021. (AP Photo / Azhari Surahman)
Bagus Puruhito, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, said rescuers were being deployed from the cities of Palu, Makassar, Balikpapan and Jakarta to help in Mamuju and Majene.
Two ships were from Makassar and Balikpapan to the affected areas carrying rescuers and search and rescue equipment, while a Hercules plane with supplies was en route from Jakarta.
Puruhito is already leading more than 4,100 rescue workers in a separate massive search for victims of the crash of a Sriwijaya Air jet in the Java Sea last Saturday.
Among the dead in Majene were three people who died when their homes were razed by the earthquake while they were sleeping, said Sirajuddin, the district chief of the disaster agency.
Sirajuddin, who is known by one name, said although the internal earthquake could not have the potential to cause a tsunami, people along the coastal areas ran higher to the ground for fear that one might occur.
Landslides have been set in motion in three places, blocking a highway connecting Mamuju with the Majene district, Disaster Agency spokeswoman Raditya Jati said.
On Thursday, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook the region and damaged several homes, but did not cause any apparent casualties.
The Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency of Indonesia, known under the Indonesian acronym BMKG, has warned of the dangers of aftershocks and the possibility of a tsunami. Its chairman has called on people in coastal areas to move to higher ground as a precaution.
Indonesia, a vast island group of 260 million people, is regularly hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Ocean.
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In 2018, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Palu on Sulawesi Island caused a tsunami and ground collapsed in a phenomenon called liquefaction. More than 4,000 people died, and many of the victims were buried when entire neighborhoods were swallowed up in the fallen ground.
A powerful earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.