Quake topples tourist hotel
2009-01-04 09:29
Manokwari - A string of powerful earthquakes rattled Indonesia on Sunday, leaving at least one dead and dozens injured, and triggering panic in the nation hardest hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami.
Indonesian authorities cancelled a tsunami alert issued after the first of several strong quakes early on Sunday morning, but by then thousands of people had fled their homes and were thronging roads leading from the coast.
A 7.6-magnitude quake hit before dawn about 150km northwest of Manokwari, the main city in the province of West Papua, which lies on the Pacific Ocean in the far east of Indonesia's island chain.
A 7.5-magnitude aftershock and a procession of smaller quakes, one as strong as magnitude 6.1, later rattled the region, according to US and Indonesian seismological authorities.
Tourist hotel
One of the main tourist hotels in Manokwari was toppled and at least three people were pulled out of the rubble alive.
Electricity in the city was down, and elsewhere there were reports of flattened houses and damaged buildings.
A 10-year-old girl was killed when a wall collapsed and at least 52 people suffered a variety of injuries, 37 of them in Manokwari, according to an AFP tally of hospital figures.
"The quake was quite strong and we felt it for about three minutes," said a local policeman who identified himself as Ketut. "The electricity blacked out after the quake."
An employee said Manokwari's Mutiara hotel was toppled by the second of the quakes, which hit around three hours after the first.
"Three hotel guests returned to their room after the first big quake.
They failed to evacuate after the second powerful quake struck and got trapped in the hotel rubble," said the staffer, who gave his name as Harun.
The three were pulled from the rubble and treated in hospital for light injuries, he said.
2004 tsunami
Memories are still raw of the devastation wrought by the 2004 tsunami, which was set off by a massive undersea quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The giant waves killed 168 000 in Indonesia's Aceh province and Nias island.