Powerful quake hits Indonesia

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia – A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Central Java province early today, killing at least 309 people, injuring scores, and flattening buildings.

The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 5:54 a.m. 15 miles southwest of the city of Yogyakarta, causing damage and casualties there and in at least two other nearby population centers, officials said. Yogyakarta, on the island of Java, is about 18 miles from the sea and about 250 miles east of the capital, Jakarta.

In the chaos that followed the quake, rumors of an impending tsunami sent thousands of people on Java fleeing to higher ground in cars and motorbikes. But Japan’s Meteorological Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami.

The quake also triggered heightened activity in nearby Mount Merapi volcano, which has been spewing out clouds of hot ash, gas and lava for several weeks, a scientist said.

Five hours after the quake struck, at least 309 bodies had been recovered, and the death toll was expected to climb, morgue officials told the Associated Press by telephone.

“Please tell the central government to send help, we need help here,” said Kusmarwanto of Bantul Muhammadiyah Hospital, the closest hospital to the quake’s epicenter.

“There so many casualties. Houses … are flattened. Many people still need to be evacuated,” he said, adding that his hospital alone had 39 dead bodies and the numbers were rising.

“We are overwhelmed with bodies,” said Subandi, a morgue official at Bethseda hospital in Yogyakarta.

Witnesses at hospitals said hundreds of injured were arriving for emergency treatment, many with broken bones and cuts.

TV footage showed damaged hotels and government buildings, and several collapsed buildings.

The quake cracked the runway in Yogyakarta’s airport, closing it to aircraft until at least Sunday while inspections take place, Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said.

Electricity and communications were also down in parts of the city, police said.