Indonesia’s quakes: Vietnamese students return home

Jakarta (VNA) – Ten Vietnamese students studying in Central Sulawesi, which was hard-hit by deadly earthquakes and tsunami, left Jakarta for Vietnam on October 6.

Earlier, they were taken unscathed to Jakarta on October 1 thanks to joint efforts by the Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia and local competent authorities. The students had been in their dormitory when the powerful earthquakes rumbled Sulawesi island. Luckily, they had a hairbreadth escape before the building collapsed.
 
Before leaving Jakarta, the students came to the embassy to pay respect to former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Do Muoi.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Indonesia Pham Vinh Quang said that the embassy will work with Tadulako University and local authorities to seek measures to ensure that the Vietnamese students can resume their study as soon as possible.

Central Sulawesi was ravaged by two devastating quakes measuring 6.1 and 7.5 on the Richter scale. The second was followed by giant tsunami waves on the afternoon of the same day, destroying thousands of houses and roads. Indonesia on October 5 announced the death toll from the disaster had swollen to 1,558.

The United Nations said that nearly 200,000 Indonesians, including tens of thousands of children, are in need of urgent aid.

Indonesia 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.

A series of earthquakes in July and August killed nearly 500 people on the holiday island of Lombok, hundreds of kilometres southwest of Sulawesi.

In December 2004, a massive 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean countries, killing 220,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 168,000 in Indonesia. –VNA