could climb to 2,000

GUNUNG SITOLI, Indonesia: Most of the deaths from Monday night’s 8.7 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean were on Nias, 75 miles south of the epicentre. By the end of Tuesday, the island’s death toll stood at about 330, but government officials said it could climb as high as 2,000. An unidentified official from nearby Aceh province told Indonesia’s Metro TV that about 100 people also died on neighbouring Simeulue island. Both islands are just west of Indonesia’s much larger Sumatra island. Monday’s quake, which stuck an hour before midnight, toppled every building in the main street of Gunung Sitoli, a church-studded seaside town that is the island’s largest.

A soccer field in the centre of town and close to the palm-fringed Indian Ocean beach was transformed into a triage center where a dozen seriously injured islanders — some of them unconscious — were lying on doors salvaged from wrecked homes. They waited, hoping that a relief agency helicopter would be able to airlift them to a hospital on Sumatra. Only about 17 were taken off the island through yesterday, officials said. People swarmed around UN helicopters as they landed to deliver relief supplies, but food and water were in short supply.

The December 26 Indian Ocean epic earthquake and tsunami — which killed more than 126,000 in Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sumatra and thousands more throughout the region — left 340 dead and 10,000 homeless on Nias. But Monday’s quake appeared to give this island its almost undivided attention. “It was stronger than the December 26 quake,” a survivor who identified himself as Ebenezer said Tuesday. “In one minute, everything was destroyed. No one had a chance to run.” From the air, it appeared that about 30 percent of the buildings in Gunung Sitoli were destroyed, and there was significant damage in the island’s second biggest town, Teluk Dalam. Inland areas appeared to be largely unaffected. Relief efforts for Nias faced daunting obstacles, as quake damaged Gunung Sitoli’s airstrip and prevented all but small planes from landing.

The International Organization for Migration said it was sending trucks loaded with water, milk and other food items and medical supplies to the Sumatran port town of Sibolga, where they will be ferried to Nias. There was very little food or water available to survivors — most of Gunung Sitoli’s stores were smashed. Medical care was also a major problem. “The hospital is desperate. It had a tough night,” said Peter Scott-Bowden of the World Food Programme. “They are short of supplies.”