UN says over 190,000 need humanitarian aids after quakes, tsunami in Indonesia

JAKARTA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Monday that a total of 191,000 people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance after multiple quakes and an ensuing tsunami devastated Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province.

A total of 56 percent of the figure were classified as rural population and the rest are urban population, the relief agency said.

Among the assistance desperately needed were foods, clean water and shelters, it added.

Strong and shallow quakes of 6.0, 7.4 and 6.1 magnitude that triggered a tsunami devastated the central province on Friday with the hardest-hit area in Palu, the provincial capital, and adjoining Donggala district.

The tsunami with the height of 0.5 to 3 meters ravaged coastal areas near Talisa beach in Palu and Donggala district, the meteorology and geophysics agency said.

Over 1,203 people were killed in Palu, Donggala district, Parigi Mountong district and North Mamuju district, according to the Disaster Management Institute of Indonesia, Care for Humanity and the Humanity Data Center.

The disasters also seriously injured 540 people and forced 16,732 people to flee homes, according to the National Disaster Management Agency.

Indonesia is prone to quake as it sits on a vulnerable quake-affected areas of the Pacific Ring of Fire.