Indonesia tsunami: Fears grow for hundreds of missing
Indonesia tsunami: Fears grow for hundreds of missing
Baku, October 28 (AZERTAC). Hundreds of people are still missing days after several remote Indonesian islands were hit by a deadly tsunami. At least 343 people have died on the Mentawai Islands and almost 400 are unaccounted for, officials say, amid fears they were swept away by the wave.
Poor weather is slowing rescue efforts but an aid ship carrying food, water, and medical supplies has now arrived in the disaster zone.
Indonesia`s president is also on his way to the islands.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cut short a trip to Vietnam to oversee the rescue effort and is heading by helicopter to the remote and inaccessible Mentawai Islands, where he will also meet the governor of the area.
The islands were inundated after a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake triggered the tsunami three days ago.
Aerial images from the Mentawai Islands have revealed the extent of destruction, with flattened villages plainly visible on images taken from helicopters.
Rescuers have finally reached the area where 13 villages were washed away by the 3m (10ft) wave but are still to make contact with 11 more settlements.
The scale of the damage in the worst-affected communities remains unclear.
Search teams have found bodies strewn along beaches and tossed by roadsides as they scour the islands, reports say.
However, many are still looking for their loved ones, even as the fear grows that they will not find them alive.
More than 1,000 people were killed by an earthquake off Sumatra in September 2009.
In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed a quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
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