Mobile phone footage showing a tsunami hitting a coastal area has been circulating online after a series of strong earthquakes rocked Central Sulawesi on Friday.
The footage purportedly shows a number of small restaurants near the Palu Grand Mall swept away by the wave.
https://youtu.be/_K8QbhiSoNU
It also shows the water hitting the heavily damaged Baiturrahman Mosque located next to the mall.
Iksam, an official of the Central Sulawesi Museum in Palu, confirmed the event to The Jakarta Post. “Yes, there was a smashing of seawater,” he said, before the phone connection broke down.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) had issued but then quickly revoked a tsunami warning after the strong earthquake occurred at 5:02 p.m. Jakarta time, only a few hours after the first earthquake.
The USGS website mentions a 7.5-magnitude quake.
National and Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a release on Friday that the quake hit the area about 27 kilometers north east of Donggala, at a depth of 10 km.
The earthquake was larger in magnitude than the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake, which measured 6.4 in magnitude, and the recent 7.0-magnitude Lombok earthquake in August.
