U.N.: Death Toll From Indonesia Quake at 1,100
529 people confirmed dead
Friday, Oct 2, 2009 | Updated 4:17 AM PST
AP
Indonesians walk through an area devastated by an earthquake in Padang, West Sumatra.
The death toll from a powerful quake on Indonesia's Sumatra island has climbed to 1,100 people by one U.N. estimate and is feared to to grow with 3,000 believed trapped in collapsed buildings.
"Let's not underestimate. Let's be prepared for the worst," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said from Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.
Official government figures from Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake just off the coast of regional capital Padang put the number of dead at 467 people, Bloomberg News reported. That was reduced from yesterday's count of 770 deaths. A second powerful quake also rocked the Southeast Island nation Wednesday but there were no reported deaths.
Earlier, 169 people were killed by a tsunami triggered by a quake off the coast of the South Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga – thousands of miles from Indonesia. President Obama declared American Samoa a “major disaster.”
Posted Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009 - 8:56 PM PST
