Quake death toll tops 450

Government officials today said the death toll from an earthquake on Indonesia's Sumatra island had topped 450, as a second tremor hit the island.

Tugiyo Bisri of the Social Affairs Ministry's crisis centre said 467 people were confirmed dead and 421 seriously injured after yesterday's 7.6 magnitude quake.

Meanwhile, another powerful quake hit Sumatra island today, the US Geological Survey said. The 6.9 magnitude quake struck at 8.52am local time (2.52am BST), about 180 miles from the epicentre of yesterday's quake.

The quakes followed an even bigger undersea tremor in the South Pacific on Tuesday, which triggered a huge tsunami that killed scores of people in the Samoan and Tonga islands including, it is feared, the toddler son of a British couple.

The boy's father was taken to hospital following the tsunami.

Hundreds of buildings in the Sumatran city of Padang collapsed after yesterday's 7.6 magnitude movement, including two hospitals, a shopping mall and mosques.

Several landslides were also reported nearer the coast.

In heavy rain overnight, Padang residents fought fires with buckets of water and used their bare hands to search for survivors, pulling at the wreckage and tossing it away piece by piece.

Powerful

Health minister Siti Fadilah Supari confirmed that two hospitals and a mall collapsed in the city.

He said: "This is a high-scale disaster, more powerful than the earthquake in Yogyakarta in 2006 when more than 3,000 people died."

British aid was being sent today to areas of the country affected with stocks of emergency shelters, hygiene kits and clothing ready to be distributed by aid teams funded by British charity Oxfam.

The British Red Cross is launching a fundraising appeal.

In Samoa, the boy feared dead was on a beach with his parents when he was swept out to sea early on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the British High Commission in New Zealand said that contrary to earlier reports that the boy was British, he was actually a New Zealand citizen, although his parents were Britons.

There are no further reports of UK casualties.

By John Kirk