Indonesia tsunami: Death toll soars to 272

Rescue teams on the Mentawai islands say 412 people are still missing, two days after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami in western Sumatra.

Officials say there were faults with an early warning system designed to alert locals to the 3m-high (10ft) wave.

Indonesia's president is cutting short a trip to Vietnam to visit the islands and oversee the relief operation.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would fly back from a meeting with regional leaders to help deal with the tsunami aftermath.

He will also be briefed on the rescue effort on Java, where an erupting volcano has caused chaos.
Warning doubts

At least 10 villages on a series of islands known as the Pagai islands are thought to have been flattened by the tsunami, which was caused by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake late on Monday.
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Indonesia's 32 hours of disaster


Waves reached 3m high and the water swept as far as 600m inland on South Pagai.

The first images emerging from the Mentawai Islands show bodies being collected from empty clearings where homes and buildings once stood, now levelled by the power of the wave.

Corpses were strewn along beaches and roads, district chief Edison Salelo Baja told the Associated Press.

Rough seas have made it difficult to ship aid to the Mentawai islands from Padang, the nearest major port on Indonesia's largest island, Sumatra. Forecasters say the bad weather is likely to continue in the coming days.

Helicopters and some planes landed on Wednesday bringing relief workers and much-needed medical supplies, reports said.

Even as the rescue effort escalated, doubts emerged about the effectiveness of an expensive early-warning system designed after the lethal Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.



BBC - News