Sirens wailed continue crowds fled across Indian Ocean nations Wednesday in a mass drill simulating a giant tsunami similar to the 2004 disaster.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Japan Meteorological Agency sent out bulletins for a 9.2-magnitude quake and tsunami.
The exercise was aimed at testing warning systems and preparedness in nations in Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and Africa.
Hundreds of people including school children ran from the coast in the Indonesian province of Aceh, the area worst hit by the 2004 tsunami.
Red Cross volunteers, police and soldiers helped people smeared with mud and fake blood into ambulances which carried them away from the coastline.
But for many, the drill only served to revive horrific memories of the real thing.
“This sort of exercise is useful for letting me know if a tsunami strikes. But the sirens and crowds make me panic, they remind me of the 2004 tsunami,” said Bachtiar, a resident of the Acehnese town of Ulee Lheue.
Another resident, 20-year-old Risnawati, said Acehnese needed no reminding of a tsunami’s destructive power.
“Acehnese already know how to save their life if a tsunami strikes. They will automatically run to higher ground if there are signs of a tsunami, like receding water,” she said.
More than 500 people were killed and thousands more were feared to be trapped under rubble following Wednesday’s devastating earthquake off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told a news conference Thursday that the government has approved 250 billion rupiah (about $26 million) in cash aid for victims of the quake, which she estimated will be enough for two months of relief operations.
She also said the devastation will impact the state budget and the national economy.
As rescue efforts were under way early Thursday, another powerful earthquake shook western Indonesia, about 180 miles from Wednesday’s epicenter, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It’s unclear whether that quake caused additional damage.
Wednesday’s earthquake had a magnitude of 7.6, according to the geological survey. The quake was felt as far as Bangkok, about 1,000 miles away.
Most of the deaths were in Padang, a city of about 750,000 on Sumatra’s western coast and about 30 miles from the quake’s epicenter.
The largest public hospital in the city, was overrun with injured and the dead. The hospital itself was damaged during quake, forcing medics to work outside in makeshift tents, where the floors were covered with a mix of bloody swabs, discarded syringes and mud from the intermittent rain. On the street outside the hospital, 19 yellow body bags were laid out.
Besides the expected casualties in Padang, more people were suspected to have died in Pariaman, a rural town of about 80,000 people that was closest to the epicenter, north of Padang. Officials received reports of buildings destroyed in Pariaman, and road access to the town was cut off by landslides triggered by the earthquake.
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Take a ferry in the vast Indonesian archipelago and there’s a good chance your name won’t show up on the manifest. Foot passengers often buy tickets on board, while car passengers are sometimes not recorded by name.
Indonesia’s latest ferry disaster — more than 200 people are missing after the Teratai Prima capsized and sank in a storm Sunday — suggests the government still has a long way to go to improve safety standards in its creaking transportation system.
Officials have blamed bad weather for the ferry tragedy, raising questions over why the boat was allowed to sail from Sulawesi island for the city of Samarinda in East Kalimantan. There are also discrepancies over the passenger list, suggesting more people were on board than the official tally of 267.
But the issue goes well beyond basic safety standards for the millions of Indonesians who travel across the 17,000 or so islands sprinkled over a distance of 5,000 km (3,100 miles).
Poor infrastructure — whether rustbucket ferries or badly maintained railways and roads — is a burden.
It adds to the cost of doing business, hampers tourism and ultimately hurts growth in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
“It’s all about governance, this has been going on for years,” said Erman Avantgarda Rahman, director of economic programs at the Asia Foundation in Jakarta.
“It shows the poor quality of infrastructure, they don’t control the number of passengers … the quality of the boats.”
The 6.1-magnitude quake struck just off the coast, some 75km (50 miles) west of the region’s main town of Manokwari, says the US Geological Survey (USGS).
There were no immediate reports of any casualties or losses.
Thousands of people in West Papua are still living in makeshift camps after Sunday’s powerful quakes.
At least one person died and 50 were seriously injured in those quakes, the strongest of which reached a magnitude of 7.6.
The BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Jakarta says there are fears that the continuing tremors and aftershocks could cause damaged buildings to collapse.
There are also concerns that the quakes could trigger a tsunami - although as the quakes get smaller, the likelihood of one happening has decreased, says our correspondent.