An earthquake on Tuesday killed six children and left 14 others trapped when a mosque collapsed during a Quran reading session in Indonesia’s Aceh province, bringing the confirmed death toll from the disaster to 11.
The strong 6.1-magnitude quake left hundreds more injured as it rocked a region that was devastated by the quake-triggered tsunami of 2004.
The earthquake reduced houses in parts of Aceh to rubble, set off several landslides and badly damaged roads.
Rescuers were struggling to find the children still trapped after the mosque collapse in Blang Mancung village, Central Aceh district.
“Our search and rescue teams are struggling to evacuate an estimated 14 children still trapped under the rubble,” Subhan Sahara, the head of the local disaster management agency, told AFP.
“I hope they can be found alive but the chances are very slim,” he added, explaining they were reading the Koran together when the quake struck.
The quake, which hit at a shallow depth of just 10 kilometres, injured more than 200 people and damaged more than 300 houses in Aceh, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
“A man was working at a coffee plantation with his wife when a landslide caused by the quake struck. His body was found under a pile of earth soon afterwards,” he said, adding that his wife and another woman were missing at the site.
Another four people died in hospitals in the district from injuries sustained in the quake, he said.