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Indonesia fights on two fronts as Tsunami and Eruption tolls Rise
Rescuers rushed to find both survivors from a tsunami in Indonesia’s remote west and the site of a volcano eruption as the death toll from the two disasters that struck merely hours apart rose to over 130.
The toll from the tsunami that hit the Mentawai Islands on October 25 off the west coast of Sumatra reached 112 with 152 missing as of 10 p.m. on Tuesday, disaster control operations said. Officials also confirmed that at least 24 died in the eruption of Mount Merapi in Central Java.
In central Java, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Jakarta, Red Cross is treating people who were burned or otherwise injured after the Mt. Merapi volcano erupted three times, spewing superheated ash into the air and killing at least 24 people.
Red Cross spokespeople underlined the need for more masks, tents and medicine with which to treat burn injuries – as well as food for the 1,360 people from five villages flocking to evacuation points and ultimately the the evacuation center in Yogyakarta.
The 7.5-magnitude temblor struck the Kepulauan Mentawai region of Indonesia, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from Padang, the provincial capital of West Sumatra, and 640 kilometers from Singapore at 9:42 p.m. local time Oct. 25, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake triggered a 3-meter (10- foot) tsunami that that reached 400 meters inland.
