Airport closed
The main airport in Palu, capital of South Sulawesi province, was shut after the tsunami struck and was expected to stay closed for at least 24 hours, complicating any disaster relief efforts.
Friday’s tremor was also felt in the far south of the island in its largest city Makassar and on neighboring Kalimantan, Indonesia’s portion of Borneo island.
The initial quake, which was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, struck as evening prayers were about to begin in the world’s biggest Muslim majority country on the holiest day of the week, when mosques are especially busy.
Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.
It lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide and many of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
Earlier this year, a series of powerful quakes hit Lombok, killing more than 550 people on the holiday island and neighboring Sumbawa.
Indonesia has been hit by a string of other deadly quakes including a devastating 9.1 magnitude tremor that struck off the coast of Sumatra in December 2004.
That Boxing Day quake triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including 168,000 in Indonesia.
The disaster was the world’s third biggest quake since 1900, and lifted the ocean floor in some places by 15 meters.
In 2010, about 430 were killed when a 7.8 magnitude quake triggered waves that pound the isolated region of Mentawai, off the coast of Sumatra.
More than 600 were killed in 2006 when another large quake triggered a tsunami off the coast of Indonesia’s most-populous Java island.
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