At least 384 people were killed, many swept away by giant waves as they played on the beach, when a major earthquake and tsunami hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, authorities said on Saturday.
Hundreds had gathered for a festival on the beach of the city of Palu on Friday when waves up to six meters (18 feet) high smashed ashore just on dusk, sweeping many to their death and destroying anything in their path.
“When the (tsunami) threat arose yesterday, people were still doing their activities on the beach and did not immediately run and they became victims,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency BNPB said in news briefing in Jakarta.