Tsunami hits small Indonesian city after 7.5 earthquake
The 2m-high tsunami hit at dusk so the number of casualties and extent of the damage is unknown
Jakarta — A tsunami up to 2m high hit a small city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday after a major 7.5 quake struck offshore, collapsing buildings and washing a vessel ashore, but officials could provide no information on casualties. The quake hit as dusk fell and communications were down and the airport closed, making it impossible to assess the damage to life and property, officials said. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said communications had been cut both in the city of Palu, a sleepy but growing tourist resort, and the nearby fishing town of Donggala, closest to the epicentre of the quake 80km away. Officials hope to be able to gauge the scale of the damage at daybreak after the strongest of a series of earthquakes that continued late into the evening. More than 600,000 people live in Palu and Donggala. “The 1.5m to 2m tsunami has receded,” Dwikorita Karnawati, who heads Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency, BMKG, told...
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