Indonesian quake toll rises to 13
Posted: 14 September 2007 1213 hrs

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JAKARTA: At least 13 people were killed in powerful quakes off Indonesia's Sumatra island and hundreds of homes damaged, officials said Friday as relief efforts accelerated.

"The total number of dead is now at 13 with 50 others injured," Rustam Pakaya, who heads the health ministry's crisis center, said in a text message alert.

Two fatalities were recorded in each of the cities of Bengkulu and Padang, while four were killed in Bengkulu province's Mukomuko, three in North Bengkulu district and two in West Sumatra's Pesisir Selatan.

An official from Bengkulu province's disaster coordination centre cautioned that no details were yet confirmed on the deaths in Mukomuko.

Initial assessments suggest the damage from the 8.4-magnitude quake that struck at dusk on Wednesday, and from a series of jolting aftershocks, is much less than initially feared.

"Even though the tremor was quite strong, the magnitude was big, reports from district heads, from aerial monitoring that was done by the air force... show that the damage can be said to be minimal," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters late Thursday.

"And we should be grateful for that," the president added. - AFP/ac