Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a television interview there are “many victims.”

In Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, a large bridge spanning a coastal river had collapsed and the city was strewn with debris. "When the (tsunami) threat arose yesterday, people were still doing their activities on the beach and did not immediately run and they became victims," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of Indonesia 's disaster mitigation agency BNPB said in news briefing in Jakarta.Hundreds of people were preparing for a beach festival to celebrate Palu's anniversary. Time is so important here to save people,” said Muhammad Syaugi, head of the national search and rescue team. It was the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. The most devastating came on Boxing Day in 2004, when a magnitude 9.5 quake triggered a massive tsunami that killed around 226,000 people along the shorelines of the Indian Ocean, including over 126,000 in Indonesia. In August, a series of major quakes killed over 500 people in the tourist island of Lombok and destroyed dozens of villages along its northern coast.Palu was hit by tsunami in 1927 and 1968, according to BNPB. Rescuers also tried to control water from a leaking pipe, fearing she would drown. The communications ministry said repeated warnings were sent out to residents via text message, but Nugroho said the quake had brought down the area’s power and communications lines and there were no sirens along the coast. Indonesia is a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that span a distance that would stretch from New York to London. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country.
More than 408 people are confirmed dead and at least 540 injured after a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake which hit Palu and Donggala, Indonesia, on Friday.