Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Tsunami Fears Subsiding

Although the quake itself has been upgraded to 8.7, it looks like this one won’t be triggering a Tsunami. Still, hundreds of people are dead, and more are feared:

Fears of a second tsunami faded Tuesday when seas failed to rise up in the hours after the overnight quake, but at least 13 aftershocks between magnitudes 5.0 and 6.1 kept nervousness high.

In Gunung Sitoli, the biggest town on the island of some 600,000 people, an Associated Press reporter saw many residents huddled around candles outside their homes, too fearful to spend the night indoors after the aftershocks that set some buildings swaying.

Budi Atmaji Adiputro, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Coordinating Agency for National Disaster Relief, said rescuers found 330 bodies in the rubble Tuesday. The toll was expected to rise because more bodies were believed to be trapped in collapsed buildings, he said.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims, and grateful it wasn’t worse.

Posted by Matt on 03/29 at 09:42 AM
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