Posted on 09/29/2018 11:40:16 AM PDT by Simon Green
More than 380 people have been confirmed dead after a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit an Indonesian city on Friday.
Waves up to 3m (10ft) high swept through Palu on Sulawesi island.
Video on social media shows people screaming and fleeing in panic and a mosque among the buildings damaged.
Strong aftershocks rocked the city on Saturday. Thousands of homes have collapsed, along with hospitals, hotels and a shopping centre.
Rescue efforts are under way, though hampered by a major power cut. The main road to Palu has been blocked due to a landslide, and a key bridge is out of action. 'Many bodies along the shoreline'
Indonesia's disaster agency said at least 384 people had been killed, but the number is expected to rise. At least 540 have been injured, and 29 are listed as missing.
"Many bodies were found along the shoreline because of the tsunami, but the numbers are still unknown," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the agency, told Reuters.
"When the threat arose yesterday, people were still doing their activities on the beach and did not immediately run and they became victims," he told a news briefing.
"The tsunami didn't come by itself - it dragged cars, logs, houses - it hit everything on land."
Some survived by climbing 6m (18ft) trees to escape the huge waves, the spokesman said.
A less powerful quake earlier on Friday had killed at least one person and injured at least 10 in the smaller fishing town of Donggala.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Prayers up for the victims...
Sad to hear this. And the toll will undoubtedly rise.
Prayers up for all involved and hurting. From my previous post:
“Unfortunately, the Indonesian authorities lifted the Tsunami warning 34 minutes after issuing it which probably increased the death toll.”
Please forgive my cynicism, but how long will it be before we are told that global warming caused the quake and/or tsunami?
US Navy to the rescue. Again. Plus Singapore and Australia.
I mapped them on Google. Palu is at the backside of a long skinny bay, like a canal.
Yup. It’s what we do. And then they will hate us for it. Why? It shows how incompetent they are. We can help from half a world away, and they cannot help their own. But again, it’s what we do.
KI wonder if the same thing happened this time as in the 2004 tsunami. Supposedly before it hit, all animals that were loose left the coast and headed to high ground.
The first time I actually grasped what a tsunami was and what it did was the one that hit Thailand. But it was the Japanese tsunami that brought it all home to me. The sirens, the water just getting higher and higher, surely it’s got to stop rising, but no, more water, more debris etc. And then the water sweeping everything back to sea.
Good. Thank you.
Sulawesi is the island formerly known as Celebes.
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