Powerful Indonesia quake kills at least 42, topples buildings

Rescuers search for survivors at a collapsed building in Mamuju city on January 15, 2021, after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia's Sulawesi island. (AFP / Mawardi)

Residents inspect earthquake-damaged buildings in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Jan. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Rudy Akdyaksyah)

Residents inspect earthquake-damaged houses in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Jan. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Rudy Akdyaksyah)

• The magnitude 6.2 quake early Friday was centered 36 kilometers south of West Sulawesi province
• Rescuers were searching for more than a dozen patients and staff trapped under a levelled Mamuju hospital

JAKARTA: Rescue workers on Friday raced to find survivors in collapsed buildings after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck the western part of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
At least 42 people have died and more than 600 were injured when the quake hit Mamuju and Majene regencies of West Sulawesi province in the early hours of Friday.
Some 15,000 people have been displaced while many others are feared to be still under the rubble as hundreds of buildings, including government offices and health facilities, were badly damaged by the earthquake.  
“We are very short on equipment to evacuate those trapped beneath the collapsed buildings. We are also short on food supplies since many of the buildings that are flattened to the ground are markets and convenience stores,” said the head of the West Sulawesi information agency, Safar, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name.  
“Residents want to buy food, but they can’t because the markets and stores are damaged. I am worried there could be looting if we don’t have food aid soon,” he told Arab News.
The quake triggered landslides that blocked the region’s main roads.  
A spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), Raditya Jati, said that the quake’s epicenter was 6 km northeast of Majene, at a depth of 10 km. It struck at 2:28 a.m. local time after a 5.9-magnitude foreshock on Thursday afternoon.  
Video footage shared by the BNPB showed a bridge broken in two and a hospital flattened to the ground. Rescuers could be heard saying that people were still trapped in the rubble.  
Another video showed a young girl caught in a collapsed house saying that a person next to her was still breathing but could not move.  
More aftershocks may still occur in the region, Dwikorita Karnawati, chief of Indonesia’s meteorological and climatology agency, said in a press conference. Between Thursday and Friday morning, at least 28 quakes, including those of lesser magnitudes, were recorded in the area.  
“Considering that Majene’s coastal area was hit by a tsunami in 1969, coastal communities have to be alert to move away as soon as possible from the coast after a strong quake jolts the area. Do not wait for our early tsunami warning,” she said.
In September 2018, neighboring Central Sulawesi province was struck by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which devastated the provincial capital of Palu, killing more than 4,000 people.  
The West Sulawesi earthquake is the latest deadly disaster to strike Indonesia in recent days, after a landslide triggered by heavy rain struck a village in Sumedang, West Java province on Jan. 9, killing at least 21 people.  
On the same day, a Sriwijaya Air passenger plane bound for West Kalimantan province crashed into the Java Sea just minutes after it took off from an airport near Jakarta, killing all 62 people on board.