Tsunami death toll rises to 370-英语文章阅读-view-大...

-29-2010 Rescuers and survivors are searching the rubble of collapsed houses on Indonesia's tsunami-hit islands in West Sumatra. The death toll has reached 370, while more than 400 people are missing.

The three-meter tsunami left huge swaths of land underwater, and reduced homes to rubble.

The wave of destruction was triggered by a 7.5 magnitude quake that struck 78 kilometers west of South Pagai, one of the Mentawai islands.

Villages in Pagai have been either completely destroyed or significantly damaged.

Officials say hundreds of wooden and bamboo homes were washed away, with water flooding crops and roads more than a half a kilometer inland.

Tom Plummer, International Aid, said, "I'm blown away with what we've seen here, over the back behind us there used to be all the cottages were there."

The casualty is still rising.

Local authorities say with not enough people to dig graves, corpses litter beaches and roads.

Fishermen scour water for survivors.

Rescuers are finally able to land on the Mentawai island chain.

Bad weather had kept them away.

The country's President rushed home from his state visit from Vietnam, to deal with the disasters.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesian President, said, "Firstly, meet my people who lost their loved ones, secondly to ensure all emergency relief operations are conducted properly. You know that this morning we also conducted air drop operations. And we will continue to do our emergency relief operations to ensure that we could save many lives of our people."

The first cargo plane with relief materials has arrived.

Four helicopters also landed in a town on North Pagai island, which will be the center of relief operations.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency says four-thousand people had been displaced.

The quake fell along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a series of fault lines prone to earthquakes.

The fault line on Sumatra island's coast is the same one that caused the 2004 quake and monster Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230-thousand people in a dozen countries.