By Xinhua
Jakarta : At least seven persons were killed and over 100 were said to have been injured after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Bengkulu province of Indonesia Wednesday.
Indonesian authorities imposed a second tsunami warning after another strong quake followed, the country’s Disaster Management Agency and Meteorology Agency said here.
“So far, seven people were killed and it is believed more than 100 others were wounded,” an official of the Disaster Management Agency, Adam Malik, told Xinhua.
He said the number of fatalities was expected to rise as there were many collapsed buildings still uncounted.
An official of the meteorology agency, Arief Akhir, said after the agency lifted the first tsunami warning, it again issued a second one after a 6.6 magnitude tremor hit the area again.
“When the magnitude 6.6 aftershock occurred, our system automatically issued a tsunami warning,” he told Xinhua.
The official said that a tremor on such scale was likely to lead to tsunami.
Until Wednesday evening, frequent moderate and strong tremors followed the main shock, the meteorology agency said.
In Jakarta, the government held an emergency meeting to deal with the disaster, Rustam Pakaya, an official of the health ministry, disclosed.
He said that Minister of Social Affairs Bachtiar Chamzah, Minister of People’s Welfare and Poverty Alleviation Aburizal Bakrie and senior officials from the Health Ministry and Disaster Management Agency would visit Bengkulu on Thursday.
Pakaya said aids would be distributed on Thursday. “Tomorrow, we will send there one tonne of medicines, 3 tonnes of baby food, and one tonne of food, and a medical team,” he told Xinhua.