Over 384 people have been reported killed and hundreds others missing after the strong earthquake and massive tsunami waves hit the city of Palu in Indonesia's Sulawesi Island on Friday night. The tsunami was accompanied by a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake in the Southeast Asian archipelago, rendering thousands homeless apart from loss of lives and properties. Several were brought dead to hospitals in the city.
According to the country's Disaster Agency, 384 people were killed after the quake and tsunami struck Sulawesi island, smashing into a city of 350,000 people. The agency added that another 356 people were injured in Palu on Sulawesi island where waves as high as 1.5 metres (five feet) slammed into the city of about 350,000 people.
"There are 30 dead at our hospital. And cases where we need to operate or need specialists to handle 12, head trauma nine," Komang Adi Sujendra earlier told Indonesian TV station Metro TV.
On Friday, the quake hit just off central Sulawesi at a shallow depth of some 10 kilometres just before around 6:00 pm local time, leaving thousands of people panic-stricken in the Southeast Asian archipelago. The tsunami reached a maximum height of 1.5 metres, disaster agency officials said.
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Soon after the incident, social media was flooded with a series of dramatic video footage filmed from the top floor of a parking ramp spiral in Palu, 80 kilometres from the quake's epicentre. The videos featured a churning wall of Whitewater mow down several buildings and inundate a large mosque.
Other pictures showed major damage to buildings, with rubble strewn about the road and large cracks running through pavements.
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Facebook Live video showed long traffic jams formed in some parts of the region as terrified residents packed into cars, trucks and motorbikes to flee to higher ground following the tsunami warning.
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Search and rescue operations are underway to save trapped people in the hard-hit areas across Palu.
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