Indonesia Tsunami: Desperation grows as death toll rises to 1,234

Indonesia’s national disaster agency on Tuesday said the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami in the Sulawesi island rose to 1,234. A 7.5-magnitude earthquake had triggered tsunami waves as high as six metre, which swept ashore at the city of Palu off the coast of Sulawesi on September 28. Thousands of families have been left homeless by the gigantic disaster that hit the island.

The updated death toll from 844 people on Monday, comes as the disaster agency continues to search the rubble left in the wake of the disaster.

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On Tuesday morning, another Indonesian island of Sumba was hit by an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The quake hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometre around 40 kilometre off Sumba, an island of some 750,000 people. Sumba lies some 1,600 kilometres to the south of Sulawesi island.

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Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. An earthquake of magnitude 6 is classed as strong, which means it can cause extensive damage to buildings and residential areas. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.’