Disasters displace thousands
Disasters displace thousands
JAKARTA (JP): Tidal waves in Central Sulawesi and floods in Aceh have left more than 13,000 people homeless.
The Central Sulawesi administration said it had not received report of casualty from Tolitoli regency, where tidal waves hit on New Year's Day. One unconfirmed report said eight people were killed.
In East Aceh, the official death toll from the flashfloods that swept 224 villages stood at 16 by yesterday afternoon, although the number could rise because some people were still reported missing.
Several aftershocks shook people who live in villages along the western coast of Central Sulawesi as the reality of the aftermath of the tidal waves dawned on them.
Tidal waves, which one report put at as high as five meters, struck their houses on Monday not long after a powerful earthquake rocked the area.
The tremor, which was also felt in as far as Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi, measured seven on the Richter scale. Officials said the epicenter of the quake was in the Strait of Makassar about 160 kilometers northwest of Palu.
"More than 400 houses and buildings in three districts--Dampal Selatan, Dampal Utara and Bangkir--were destroyed by the tidal waves," Harsono Hamu, an official of the Central Sulawesi administration was quoted by Antara news agency as saying.
A Palu resident who was monitoring the situation through ham radio told the Post by phone that eight people were killed.
"The people were evacuated and placed in makeshift tents in surrounding areas," Yusuf Bantilan, the resident, said.
Tolitoli regency chief Gumyadi was not available for confirmation. His staff said he was personally overseeing the relief operation.
The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta said it registered no less than 137 aftertremors in the Tolitoli area between the first powerful quake that struck at 4 p.m. local time on Monday and yesterday afternoon.
The western coast of Central Sulawesi province is prone to earthquakes and tidal waves. In 1968, a series of tidal waves killed hundreds of people in the Balaesang area. Powerful earthquakes also struck the Tolitoli area in 1982 and Donggala regency in May last year.
Flood
Meanwhile, reports from East Aceh regency said that more than 11,000 people in 17 districts have been forced to flee because of the floods which began last Friday when the Liput and Tamiang rivers overflowed.
Antara said that hundreds of hectares of ready-to-harvest rice fields and oil palm plantations have been inundated.
One official in Banda Aceh described the floods as the worst to hit the province in the last 50 years.
The state oil enterprise Pertamina has been forced to shut its oil field Rantau because of the flood, Reuters reported quoting an official of the company.
"The Rantau oil field has a capacity of 5,000 barrels per day. It is small. We shut the field because of the flood. It will affect production but only on a small scale," Pertamina's general affairs director, Baharuddin, told the news agency.
The floods destroyed a bridge linking Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh, and Medan, capital of North Sumatra. The road link was quickly restored with the construction of a temporary bridge, RCTI reported. (01)