Nearly 400 people were killed when a powerful quake sent a tsunami barrelling into the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, officials said Saturday, as hospitals struggled to cope with hundreds of injured and rescuers scrambled to reach the stricken region.
The national disaster agency put the official death toll so far at 384, all of them in the tsunami-stricken city of Palu, but warned the toll was likely to rise.
There were also concerns over the whereabouts of hundreds of people preparing for a beach festival that had been due to start Friday evening, the disaster agency said.
In Palu -- home to around 350,000 people -- partially covered bodies lay on the ground near the shore after tsunami waves 1.5 metres (five feet) high hit the coast.
Residents sifted through a tangled mess of corrugated steel roofing, timber, rubble and flotsam that the waves had pushed some 50 metres inland.