Quake damage 'could be worse'

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 09/14/2007 2:33 PM

The Jakarta Post, Bengkulu, Jakarta

Sumatra island was hit by a series of aftershocks on Thursday after a powerful earthquake toppled hundreds of buildings, killing at least 10 people and burying many others.

Authorities said the situation was not as bad as first feared, while a seismologist added that the region was lucky to have escaped a tsunami similar to the one triggered by the more than 9 magnitude quake in 2004 that killed over 280,000 people.

""The damage is relatively less"" than feared, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday.

""However, we still have to do a thorough assessment. People are better at responding to disasters than in previous years,"" he said, as quoted by Reuters.

Wednesday's initial 7.9 magnitude quake -- which took place on the eve of Ramadhan, and was felt in neighboring Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand -- cut communication lines and sparked widespread panic in the hours that followed.

""We are grateful for the fact that the situation wasn't as bad as we initially thought it would be,"" said Muhammad Syamlan, vice governor of Bengkulu province, whose capital Bengkulu was close to the epicenter of the quake.

The Wednesday quake and a further 40 tremors ranging in intensity from 4.9 to 7.8 repeatedly set off tsunami warnings in Indian Ocean countries. However there were no reports of major ocean surges hitting coastlines in Southeast Asia.

As another powerful quake struck a few thousand kilometers away, authorities sought to ferry aid supplies to villages and outlying areas where scores of homes were flattened.

A separate quake hit the northern tip of Sulawesi on Thursday with a magnitude of 6.2, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, some 2,700 kilometers to the east of the Sumatra epicenter, AFP reported.

It prompted another tsunami warning, but there were no initial reports of damage and the alert was later lifted.

Crowds of Palembang residents wanting to make sure their relatives in Bengkulu were safe after Wednesday's earthquake formed long lines at the Karya Jaya bus station Thursday.

Fitriani, one of the worried travelers carrying cooked food and other supplies for their loved ones, said that she had heard her relatives in Bengkulu needed help because their house had been damaged in the quake.

Fifty-seven-year-old Pisna Arsyad called all 12 members of her family to gather around a plastic tent in front of her house in Tebing Kandang village, North Bengkulu, as the call to the Maghrib prayer sounded from a nearby mosque.

Despite the strong wind and the noise of vehicles driving past, she distributed a coconut oil-banana soup (kolak) to her family to break their fast on the first day of Ramadhan this year.

The family said they preferred the noise outside to staying in their home, which had been rocked by the quake. They are now sleeping in a tent.

""I can still feel the tremors. And there is no way that we would live inside the house until they are completely gone,"" Pisna told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The Bengkulu administration said that as of Thursday afternoon, they had recorded 667 destroyed houses and nine damaged areas of road in the area.

At Pisna's house, the quake toppled most of the building's interior walls, while scaffolding is now holding up its outer walls.

Lahmudin, a resident of Lais, another district in North Bengkulu, said he would wait for two to three days before returning to his home.

The front of his house has partially collapsed and the roof now almost touches the ground.

Other seriously affected regions in the province include the capital, Bengkulu city, and Muko Muko regency, which is six to seven hours travel from city along a road that was severely damaged in the quake.

Despite the hundreds of damaged buildings, the city was returning to normal on Thursday although the administration declared the day off for all citizens including students.

The administration has also tried to relocate hundreds of patients at the M. Yunus public hospital to the Rafflesia Hospital and several public health posts.

The Jakarta Post's Adisti Sukma Sawitri contributed to this story from Bengkulu

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