Indonesia suffer another major earthquake

A powerful earthquake struck Indonesia today following a series of tremors yesterday that left 34 dead, hundreds injured and devastated a remote town.

Today’s quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale, according to the US Geological Survey and struck the same area shortly before noon local time.

“The event was shallow, occurring within the earth’s crust and would have been felt over a wide area and caused further damage to yesterday’s event,” said a statement by Geoscience Australia.

Survivors gave harrowing accounts of the earlier quake, which devastated Nabire in Indonesia’s Papua province.

A local nurse, who said she had access to casualty figures, said 34 people had died including a mother and a two-year-old child, who were crushed under a cupboard and piles of rubble.

Nurse Itje Wanaha spoke by phone to The Associated Press from Nabire.

“It was the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” she said. “I’m really traumatised.

“Everything crashed on the floor. I ran out praying for my life. The land shook as if it was the sea with huge waves.”

The quake damaged a bridge, churches, mosques, roads and buildings, said Arif Sukanto, an official from the National Co-ordinating Board for the Management of Disaster in Jakarta.

The local airport was also damaged and could only be used for light, single-engine aircraft, slowing down efforts to evacuate the victims and fly in supplies and emergency equipment.

Two pipelines at a petrochemical storage depot were said to be ruptured, but no leaks were reported.

Papua governor Jacob Solossa was scheduled to inspected the area late today.

Nabire is on the northern coast of Papua, 2,000 miles north east of Jakarta. The province, formerly known as Irian Jaya, occupies the western half of New Guinea island.

The quake levelled up to 500 houses – mostly built from wood, bamboo and thatch – in Nabire and the nearby towns of Enarotali and Manokwari.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries.