More than 10,000 injured in Indonesia's earthquake

More than 10,000 people have been injured in a powerful earthquake that hit the Indonesian island of Java early Saturday morning, Vice President Yusuf Kalla said on Sunday.

"The wounded are more than 10,000, 20,000, we don't know yet exactly," Kalla told BBC radio, adding that the figure could be far higher, as more damage and casualty reports came in.

He attributed the heavy casualties to the stone construction of houses in the quake zone. Official tallies show at least 3,000 people were killed in the quake.

Hospitals were struggling to cope with the disaster, said Kalla, adding that international aid was expected to begin arriving later Sunday.

Meanwhile, some 5,000 Indonesian troops were expected to arrive in the quake zone's main city of Yogyakarta later in the day to help with the rescue operations, he said.

The quake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale struck the densely populated area near the city of Yogyakarta along Java's southern coast and caused severe damage to buildings in surrounding areas, including the towns of Klaten, Bantul and Kulon.

On Saturday, Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs put the death toll at 3,100.

The Red Cross estimated that some 200,000 people have been displaced in the quake, the country's worst disaster since the December 2004 tsunami that killed 131,000 people on Sumatra.

Source: Xinhua