Victim of earthquake is treated in Sumatra, 30 Sep 2009
Earthquake cause building to crash down. This earthquake is the same fault as 2004 earthquake.
Office workers gather outside their building after feeling an earthquake tremor in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 30 Sep 2009. Neighbouring countries like Malaysia felt the tremors from the powerful Earthquake that hit Indonesia. Evacuee tall building as safety measure.
An injured girl cries during an evacuation after an earthquake hit Padang
Earthquake survivors receive medical treatment at a hospital in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009. The powerful earthquake rocked western Indonesia Wednesday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.6. The quake was along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
A TV-grab shows the victim of a powerful 7.9-magnitude quake in West Sumatra
A major 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's Sumatra island Thursday south of the site of an earlier powerful quake that left more than 1,000 feared dead, geologists said.
The quake hit on land at 8:52 am (0152 GMT) more than 150 kilometres from the epicentre of a 7.6-magnitude quake that struck off the island's western coast on Wednesday, Indonesian geophysics and meteorology agency technical head Suharjono told AFP.
A powerful earthquake that struck western Indonesia trapped thousands of people under collapsed buildings — including hospitals, a hotel and a classroom, officials said. At least 200 bodies were found in one coastal city and the toll was expected to be far higher. The temblor Wednesday started fires, severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 on Sumatra island. Thousands fled in panic, fearing a tsunami. It was felt hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Malaysia and Singapore, causing buildings there to sway.The quake was registered at 9:31 local time (1:31 GMT) some 225 km (140 miles) southeast of the Indonesian city of Padang, hit by a powerful quake on September 30.
The death toll from Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude earthquake is likely to rise as thousands of people are believed trapped under rubble in the city, capital of the Indonesian region of West Sumatra. According to recent reports, at least 200 people were killed.
An official with the country's health ministry earlier told Reuters that "thousands" of people could be killed in the quake.
The quake is the latest in a series of natural disasters to rock Indonesia. Part of the Pacific's Ring of Fire, Indonesia is in the world's most seismically active region, registering 6,000-7,000 earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.0 or above annually.
The 7.6 earthquake occurred near the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra. Shock waves were felt in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia. A tsunami alert was initially issued for the region but hours later it was called off. The earthquake occurred one day after an 8.0 earthquake triggered a Tsunami that struck the Pacific island of Samoa.Randy Baldwin a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center says the two events were not related.
"There is quite a bit of distance separating the two different quakes, there is no relationship," he said. "It's just a very active region all the way around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean."
He says the quake originated 50 kilometers northwest of of the city of Padang in southern Sumatra. The area is along the same fault line that spawned the massive 2004 India Ocean tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people.
Local media is reporting that hundreds of houses collapsed in Padang. Buildings have been damaged in the area. Some neighborhood have lost electricity and telecommunications. One news channel also reported incidents of people panicking and running in the streets.
One local resident who experienced the quake in the central Sumatra province of Jambi says people there did not panic.
He says they often get earthquakes in Sumatra, so they know what to do.
The Padang airport has been closed. Indonesian search and rescue teams are heading to the affected areas.
Earthquake Shake Padang city
Sumatrans ran screaming into the street today as a second earthquake, measuring 7.0, hit the Indonesian island just 12 hours after a powerful 7.6 quake devastated the southern city of Padang where thousands are feared dead.
This morning rescuers raced to the flattened city where at over 400 people are believed to have died and tens of thousands remain trapped in rubble. The earthquake was so powerful it was felt hundreds of miles away in Malaysia and Singapore, causing buildings there to sway. The second quake hit about 150 miles south of Padang, at a depth of just under 20 miles.
As dawn broke in Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 on Sumatra island, people who had chosen to sleep in makeshift shelters in the open gathered weeping outside demolished buildings. Furniture was strewn through the streets and a man's foot could be seen sticking from the rubble of one house, his body trapped and invisible under tons of concrete.
Women and children sat helplessly on the ground outside their demolished homes, wailing in uncontrollable grief.
The work of rescuers has been made doubly difficult with electricity and communications remaining cut off and landslips caused by pouring rain blocking roads into the city.
"The number of people who died in West Sumatra is 464 and they are from six districts," said Tugyo Bisri, a social affairs ministry official. Other officials haveestimated that the toll would reach in the “thousands”.
At least 500 buildings in Padang had collapsed or were badly damaged, including hospitals, mosques, a mall and a school. The extent of damage in surrounding areas was still unclear.
An Indonesian television station showed footage of heavy equipment breaking through layers of cement in search of more than 30 children it said were missing and feared dead at one school.
“I was studying math with my friends when suddenly a powerful earthquake destroyed everything around me,” an unidentified boy told Indonesia’s TVOne. He escaped out of the top floor just as the three-story structure, used for after-school classes, crumpled.
Rustam Pakaya, the head of the Health Ministry crisis centre, said a major city hospital was also among the many buildings that had buckled in the quake.
Indonesia’s Vice President Jusuf Kalla said: "People are trapped, hotels have collapsed, schools have collapsed, houses have collapsed and electricity has been cut off."
Government ministers are on their way to Padang, with aid including tents, generators, food and water.
Indonesia, a poor, sprawling nation with limited resources, was cobbling together an emergency aid response, and the government was preparing for the possibility of thousands of deaths.
Padang's mayor appealed for assistance on Indonesian radio.
“We are overwhelmed with victims and ... lack of clean water, electricity and telecommunications,” Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar said. “We really need help. We call on people to come to Padang to evacuate bodies and help the injured.”
Rescue workers in Indonesia are desperately attempting to save thousands of residents who may be trapped under rubble after a 7.6 quake left behind mass destruction
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A huge earthquake has brought death and destruction to the Indonesia island of Sumatra. Footage from the town of Padang show how the 7.6 magnitude temblor ...
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