MEUREUDU, Indonesia—Humanitarian organizations descended on Indonesia’s Aceh province on Thursday, as the government in Jakarta promised tons of emergency aid and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people. Maj. Gen. Tatang Sulaiman, chief of the army in Aceh province, said at least 97 died in the magnitude-6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday, while four people had been pulled from the rubble alive. Search efforts involving volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel were concentrated on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the 6.5-quake magnitude that hit before dawn on Wednesday. National Disaster Mitigation Agency Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. She said she didn’t want to return home “not only because my house is damaged, but I am still afraid an aftershock could cause a tsunami.”

The national disaster agency said nearly 600 buildings were severely damaged or destroyed in the districts of Pidie Jaya, Pidie and Bireun. Most were shop houses or dwellings but mosques, a hospital, boarding schools and a shopping center also sustained damage. (AP Photo/Heri Juanda)

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck at 5:03 a.m. and was centred about 19 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Sigli, a town near the northern tip of Aceh, at a depth of 17 kilometres (11 miles). Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the terrifying memory of a giant Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that struck off Sumatra. Aiyub Abbas, the chief of Pidie Jaya district, which is 11 miles south-west of the epicentre, said there was urgent need for excavation equipment to move heavy debris and emergency supplies. The district health office chief Said Abdullah said nearly 200 injured had arrived since the quake, but many would not enter the hospital for fear of aftershocks. “Every aid and civil-society organization is piling into the area with as many boxes of rice, instant noodles, blankets and other aid as they can shift,” said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, which has an assessment team in northern Aceh. Seaside resident Fitri Abidin in Pidie Jaya said she fled with her husband and children to a nearby hill after the quake jolted the family awake early in the morning. The death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck western Indonesia on Wednesday has nearly doubled to 97, the military said, as more bodies were pulled from the rubble of scores of shattered buildings. The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. I looked around and all my neighbours’ homes were completely flattened.”

A huge undersea earthquake in 2004 triggered a tsunami that engulfed parts of Aceh and other countries around the Indian Ocean, killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia alone.
At least 96 people are killed following a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia's Aceh region. Hundreds of people are injured and several buildings have collapsed.