JAKARTA: A tsunami caused deaths when it hit a small city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday after a major quake offshore, collapsing buildings and cutting off power.

The tsunami, up to two metres high, struck beaches as dusk fell in Palu, a sleepy but growing tourist resort, and a nearby fishing town of Donggala, closest to the epicentre of the quake 27 km away.

“The earthquake and tsunami caused several casualties ... while initial reports show that victims died in the rubble of a collapsing building,” National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told reporters. “The number of casualties and the full impact is still being calculated.”

Sutopo said the disaster caused a power outage that cut communications in Donggala and surrounding areas. The communications ministry is working to repair 276 electricity base stations.

Officials said aftershocks, the communications breakdown and the power outage made it hard to coordinate rescue efforts.

More than 600,000 people live in Palu and Donggala.

“The 1.5-to two-metre tsunami has receded,” Indonesia’s meteorology agency, BMKG, said. “The situation is chaotic. People are running on the streets and buildings have collapsed. There is a ship washed ashore.”

The BMKG had earlier issued a tsunami warning, but lifted it within an hour.

Amateur footage shown by TV stations showed waters crashing into houses along Palu’s shoreline, scattering shipping containers and flooding into a mosque in the city.

The national search and rescue agency said it would deploy a large ship and helicopters to aid the operation.

The armed forces and police will also provide troops and equipment to support the emergency response.

Oil company Pertamina said its fuel depot in Donggala had been damaged in the incident, although there was no oil spill. Fuel tanks had shifted in the quake and ship loading facilities were disabled among other damage.

Palu, hit by a 6.2 magnitude quake in 2005 which killed one person, is a tourist resort at the end of a narrow bay famous for its beaches and water sports.

In 2004, an earthquake off the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2018