After the tsunami disaster in Indonesia, the authorities are resisting criticism of the warning system. The head of the Center for Meteorology and Geophysics (BMKG) justified the decision to cancel the tsunami warning on Friday night after half an hour. At that moment, there were no more tidal waves, said authorities boss Dwirkorita Karnawati the newspaper "Jakarta Post".

The BMKG had issued a tsunami warning a few minutes after the stronger earthquake, but canceled it half an hour later - from the perspective of critics too early, so that people have become careless. "There was no siren, and many people were unaware of the danger, so they went to work on the beach," said Indonesian civil protection spokesman Sutopo Nugroho.

In contrast, the boss defends the responsible authority BMKG. "The beach at Palu was hit by three waves at dusk, which took two and a half minutes," Karnawati told the Jakarta Post. "The third and highest has torn homes and kiosks." The tsunami warning was then lifted only a few minutes later, at exactly 18:37 local time.

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Tsunami in Indonesia: Desperate search for survivors

However, from the point of view of the German Geo Research Center in Potsdam (GFZ) too early. "The system provides that the warning may be lifted after two hours at the earliest," GFZ spokesman Josef Zens had told the "Tagesspiegel".

According to official figures, the earthquake and tsunami killed at least 832 people on the west coast of Indonesia's fourth largest island. There are also many hundreds injured. However, it is feared that these numbers will rise significantly - partly because emergency forces have not yet access to some of the affected regions. Especially in the municipality of Donggala in the north many victims are feared.

Video: Tsunami in Indonesia - more than 800 deaths

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Rescue teams have resumed the search for survivors. The work on the island of Sulawesi, according to the helpers, however, made difficult by the fact that it lacks technical equipment and fuel. The military flew generators because the power is still interrupted after two heavy earthquakes and the following tidal wave from Friday in many places.

Indonesia, with more than 260 million inhabitants, is one of the most populous states on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically very active zone. There the earth quakes again and again.

On Christmas Day 2004, an earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that resulted in the deaths of some 230,000 people in the eastern coastal states of the Indian Ocean.