At least three people were killed and 24 others injured after an earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, causing landslides and sending people fleeing from their homes.
In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl trapped in the wreckage of a house cried out for help and said her mother was alive but unable to move out. “Please help me, it’s hurt,” the girl told rescuers, who replied that they desperately wanted to help her.
In the video, the rescuers said an excavator was needed to save them. Other images in the video showed a severed bridge as well as damaged and even flattened houses. TV stations reported the earthquake damaged part of a hospital and patients were moved to an emergency tent outside.
Another video showed a father crying and asking for help to save his children buried under his house’s rubble. “My children there… they are trapped inside, please help,” he cried in panic.
About 2,000 displaced people were evacuated to several temporary shelters. The magnitude 6.2 quake early on Friday was centred 22 miles south of West Sulawesi province’s Mamuju district, at a depth of 11 miles, the US Geological Survey said.
At least 62 houses, a public health centre and a military office were damaged in Mamuju and landslides were set off in three locations and blocked a main road connecting Mamuju to the Majene district, said Raditya Jati, the disaster agency’s spokesperson.
He added that the agency is still collecting data from areas struck by the quake.
On Thursday, a magnitude 5.9 quake hit under the sea in the same region, damaging several homes but causing no apparent casualties.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 260 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
