LUWUK (Indonesia): Some panicked residents of a quake-hit Indonesian island have refused to return home after the tremor triggered a brief tsunami warning and fears there was more to come, the disaster agency said yesterday.
Aftershocks rippled across the east coast of Sulawesi – an island where thousands were killed in a quake-tsunami last year – as officials scrambled to assess whether there are any casualties or major damage.
While one resident of quake-hit Luwuk city reportedly died after falling while trying to flee, the agency has not reported any confirmed deaths or injuries.
An AFP reporter in the city said there were no signs of major property damage.
“The situation is returning to normal,” the disaster agency said early yesterday morning.
Some 1,300 families have returned home, it said, adding that some residents of another small island near the epicentre of Friday’s 6.8 magnitude quake were still refusing to return from higher ground.
It did not say how many residents had refused to leave the high ground.
Luwuk resident Emiliana Rumayer said she and her family slept in the hills overnight “but we’ve now returned home”.
Mohammad Sholeh, police chief of Poso city on Sulawesi, said the quake’s impact there had been minor.
“There’s a little bit of damage, but nothing significant and there are no casualties,” he said.
The quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 17km off the east coast of Sulawesi island on Friday, the US Geological Survey said, where a 7.5-magnitude quake-tsunami around the city of Palu killed more than 4,300 people last year.
Three light-to-moderate aftershocks occurred in the same area following the initial quake, USGS reported.
Indonesia’s disaster agency issued a tsunami warning for coastal communities in Morowali district, where residents were advised to move away from the coast.
The warning was later lifted by the agency, which had estimated the wave at under a half a metre.
Video footage from Luwuk city showed scared residents – some carrying children – running from their homes and racing to higher ground on motorcycles.
The USGS warned that considerable damage was possible in poorly built or badly designed structures.
Hapsah Abdul Madjid, who lives in Luwuk city in Banggai district, Central Sulawesi, where the tremor was felt strongly, said people fled to higher ground and the electricity was cut, adding that residents panicked as fears soared over an imminent tsunami.
The tremor off the eastern coast of Sulawesi is on the other side of the island from disaster-hit Palu, where residents still felt the quake despite being hundreds of kilometres away.
“I ran straight outside after the earthquake – everything was swaying,” 29-year-old Palu resident Mahfuzah told AFP.
Thousands in Palu were still living in makeshift shelters six months after the late September disaster, with at least 170,000 residents of the city and surrounding districts displaced and entire neighbourhoods still in ruins, despite life returning to normal in other areas of the tsunami-struck city. – AFP
