LUWUK, Indonesia, April 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – 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 Saturday.
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
Saturday 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.
On Friday, a tsunami warning was issued for coastal communities in Morowali
district, where residents were advised to move away from the coast.
The warning was later lifted by the disaster agency, which had estimated
the wave at under a half a metre (20 inches).
Video footage from Luwuk showed scared residents — some carrying children
— running from their homes and racing to higher ground on motorcycles.
The quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 17 kilometres (10 miles)
off Sulawesi, where a 7.5-magnitude quake-tsunami around the city of Palu
killed more than 4,300 people last year.
Residents of Palu, which is hundreds of kilometres away from Friday’s
epicentre, still felt the quake.
Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth due to its
position straddling the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates
collide.
On Boxing Day 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck westernmost Aceh
province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 in Indonesia.
Last year Indonesia experienced more than 2,500 disasters ranging from a
series of deadly earthquakes to killer landslides and volcanic eruptions.