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6.2 quake hits Indonesia, at least 34 dead

A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.2 shook Indonesia on Friday January 15th. The epicenter has been spotted on the island of Celebes. The damage is considerable. Several buildings, including a hospital, collapsed under the power of the tremors, according to the disaster management agency, killing at least 34 people and injuring several hundred others. A first human toll reported 26 dead. Authorities expect to find many dead under the rubble.

“According to the latest information there are 26 dead, all in the city of Mamuju,” said Ali Rahman, head of the local disaster management agency. Eight other people died in Majene, another locality in the Mamuju region, another local agency official said. In Mamuju, the most affected city in the region, rescuers were looking for more than a dozen patients and medical personnel missing under the rubble of a hospital.

The inhabitants flee the region

“The hospital is destroyed. He collapsed. There are patients and hospital staff trapped in the rubble and we are in the process of evacuating them ”, told Agence France-Presse Arianto, an emergency officer in Mamuju. He estimated the number of people trapped between 10 and 20, without being able to confirm whether they were alive.

The extent of the damage in the provincial capital of some 110,000 inhabitants was not immediately known. The magnitude 6.2 earthquake, according to the American Institute of Geophysics, occurred at 2:18 a.m. local time (Thursday 6:18 p.m. GMT) on Friday. The epicenter of the earthquake was located 36 kilometers south of Mamuju, at a relatively shallow depth of 18 kilometers, the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS) said.

Images of the area show residents fleeing by motorbike and car, passing collapsed tin roofs and damaged buildings. “The roads are bursting, and several buildings have collapsed,” said Hendra, a 28-year-old witness living in Mamuju. “The shock was very strong (…) I was awakened and I fled with my wife. ”

The meteorology and geophysics agency has warned of the possibility of further tremors and asks residents to avoid the seaside because of the risk of a tsunami. “The aftershocks could be as strong or stronger than this morning,” said Dwikorita Karnawati, the head of the agency. As of Thursday, a 5.8 tremor had already been felt in the region, without causing significant damage. Landslides followed the earthquake, cutting off access to one of the province’s main roads, and the local Mamuju airport was also damaged.

Precedents on the island of Celebes

The Indonesian archipelago is located on the Pacific “ring of fire”, an area of ​​high seismic activity. The region of Palu, on the island of Celebes, had already been hit in September 2018 by a very strong 7.5 magnitude earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami. This disaster left more than 4,300 dead and missing and at least 170,000 displaced.

Another devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in 2004, causing a tsunami that killed 220,000 people in the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.


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