The epicenter was located 155 miles southeast of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh and 200 miles west of Medan, Sumatra.
Indonesian Health Ministry officials put the toll in Aceh and the neighboring province of North Sumatra at nearly 4,500 and predicted more victims would be discovered after rescue teams reached remote hamlets cut off by the disaster. In Indonesia, as elsewhere throughout the region, it was impossible to determine the exact toll, which will likely not be known for some time.
This earthquake unleashed a series of tsunamis Sunday that crashed into coastal towns, fishing villages and tourist resorts from Sri Lanka to India, Thailand and Malaysia, killing more than 13,000 people in at least nine countries and leaving thousands missing.
The 9.0 magnitude quake was the strongest in 40 years and the fourth- most-powerful since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The tsunamis also left thousands injured, thousands missing and hundreds of thousands homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
|
|
More than 4,500 people have been reported dead in Sri Lanka. Most of them, authorities said, were in the eastern district of Batticaloa. Thousands were missing and more than a half million displaced.
In southern Sri Lanka, 200 prisoners escaped when the waves swept away a high-security prison in Matara.
Witnesses in the eastern Sri Lankan port city Trincomalee reported 14 meter (40-foot) waves hitting inland as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles).
The Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency, and, along with the government of the Maldives, has requested international assistance, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.
