(9 Dec 2016) A spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said the death toll from December 7th's earthquake has risen to 102, spread across three districts in northern Aceh but concentrated in Pidie Jaya near the epicentre.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said at a news conference on December 8th that 136 people are severely injured and more than 600 have light injuries.
Rescue workers, soldiers and police have resumed their search for survivors and combed through the rubble of a devastated town in the Aceh province.
The shallow and powerful quake struck northeast Sumatra before dawn on December 7th.
Dozens of buildings have been destroyed and the worst damage appears to be in the Pidie Jaya district.
***
Humanitarian organisations descended on Indonesia's Aceh province on December 8th as the government in Jakarta promised tons of emergency aid and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people.
Search efforts were underway in Tringgading in Pidie Jaya district near the epicentre of the magnitude 6.5 quake that hit before dawn on December 7th, where many buildings collapsed.
Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel meanwhile were concentrated on the nearby hard-hit town of Meureudu.
Humanitarian assessment teams were also fanning out to other areas of the district.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase.
Thousands of people are homeless or afraid to return to their homes.
Aceh officials said more than 8,000 people spent the night of December 7th in shelters in Pidie Jaya district alone.
***
Indonesia's president travelled on December 9th to areas of Aceh province devastated by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake and vowed that torn-apart communities would be rebuilt.
Stopping at a collapsed mosque in Tringgading not far from the quake's epicentre, Joko Widodo gave out envelopes stuffed with 15 million rupiah (1,125 US dollars) - a small fortune in Aceh where the minimum wage is about 2 million rupiah (150 US dollars) a month - to people whose family members were killed.
More than 100 people were killed in the quake that hit the northeast of Aceh province on Sumatra before dawn December 7th.
Hundreds of people were injured and more than 11,000 buildings destroyed or heavily damaged.
Thousands of people are living in temporary shelters.
00:47:04

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/97e3af71654c4808ab32904d96646c75