In the remote Mentawai Islands west of Sumatra, aid workers said that the isolation of many villages as well as choppy seas meant that some victims had yet to receive any assistance three days after a 7.7-magnitude 7.7 underwater quake sent a 10-foot-tall tsunami crashing onto land, smashing apart homes and killing hundreds. As a steady trickle of supplies reached the islands with the help of military ships and aircraft, officials raised the toll to 343 confirmed dead and 338 missing. Agence France-Presse, quoting a high Indonesian official, said the death toll is likely to pass 500. An estimated 16,000 people have been displaced, officials said.
At the same time, a new eruption Thursday evening at Mount Merapi on the island of Java about 750 miles, to the east, stirred fears of further destruction after powerful eruptions late Tuesday killed 34 people and destroyed villages in clouds of superheated gas and debris, said Nelis Zuliasri, a spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Agency.
Nearly 40,000 villagers who had fled plumes of hot ash were being asked to stay in temporary shelters while seismologists sought to work out whether the fresh eruptions meant that further destruction was on the way. There had been no reports of anyone hurt in the latest eruption, Ms. Zuliasri said.
In the Mentawais, aid workers said that the spread of the disaster across a number of hard-to-reach islands meant that assistance was still only trickling in to many areas. “We’re still just trying to fulfill the basic needs — food, tents, blankets, things like that,” Ms. Zuliasri said. “We’ve sent medicine out there, and we’re now using Hercules aircraft and ships.”
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