Aftershocks Hit Sumatra Island Hard After Wednesdays Earthquakes

Sumatra Island, Indonesia has been shaken by aftershocks today after the world’s most powerful earthquake so far this year killed an estimated six people, with many more buried under buildings and rubble.

Tsunami warnings were issued continuously and lifted for Indian Ocean rim countries after the latest tremors. The U.S Geological Survey (USGS) said the tremors took to a total of 19 and ranged from 4.9-8.4 over the time frame of just 18 hours. Geophysicist Dale Grant has said, ““We can expect aftershocks to continue for some time,”.

The mayor of Padang, which is the capital of West Sumatra, has said many people were trapped under collapsed buildings, with reports of hundreds of injured people in Bengkulu to the South.

The initial 8.4-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday threw Padang into chaos, as the strongest recorded earthquake this year bought the city to it’s knees. Many people fled in terror. Huge traffic jams were reported in the city, Eri Kamra a Padang resident has told Reuters in an interview, ““My family and neighbours are evacuating to higher ground. Everyone in the place where I live decided to evacuate. I saw buildings collapse and one person lost consciousness after the morning quake.”

Officials are said to be deeply concerned about the situation Bengkulu finds itself in. The coastal city with around 300,000 residents and the closest major town to the epicentre of Wednesday’s huge earthquake is said to be in a bad condition.

Before the communication lines to the area were cut, Metro TV were reporting of the hundreds of people who were hurt there.

“The North Bengkulu area has been identified as the worst hit with half the area destroyed,” Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry’s crisis centre in Jakarta revealed, “Many hospitals, houses, government buildings and clinics have been destroyed.”

The latest casualty figures show that six people had been killed and 40 seriously injured by the earthquakes, who’s tremors reached neighbouring Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

Indonesia is prone to suffer from earthquakes, which is not surprising as it lies on an active seismic belt on part of the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.
Who can forget the Boxing Day earthquake in 2004, which measured 9 on the Richter scale and caused a huge Tsunami resulting in over 230,000 deaths in countries across the Indiana Ocean.

Bakri Beck, the deputy for relief efforts and the National Coordinating Body for Disaster Management has said that relief is on its way, although “Relief efforts are being hampered by the continuous occurrence of quakes along the west coast of Sumatra, which has resulted in power outages and disruption of communication”

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