71 foreigners, including 32 Thais, found safe in Sulawesi
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency in Indonesia has announced that 71 foreign tourists were affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Sulawesi last Friday evening.
Authorities say they have found 66 of the foreigners and declared them safe and accounted for. Two of the rescued tourists, a Singaporean and a Belgian, have now been moved to Jakarta.
Of those, 32 Thai tourists safe in Palu, while 21 Chinese citizens have been taking shelter at a hotel in Palu. Meanwhile, 10 Vietnamese are safe and at Palu’s Mutiara Sis Al Jufri Airport camp. A German tourist is reportedly safe and staying at a resort in Donggala.
However, authorities have not been able to locate three French citizens and a Malaysian tourist, while a South Korean is believed to be trapped under the rubble of the Roa Roa hotel in Palu.
The National Search and Rescue Agency team has now begun evacuating guests from the hotel but, as of yesterday, only six guests were confirmed to have survived the earthquake and one had been confirmed dead.
A tsunami hit the coastal areas of Palu, Donggala and Mamuju in Central Sulawesi on Friday evening, triggered by a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that rocked the province at 5:02pm. Jakarta time. The epicenter of the quake was 27 kilometres northeast of Donggala and 10 kilometres deep.
Palu was worse affected as it lies at the end of an inlet where the effect of the tsunami was intensified as the wave funneled down the bay.
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