The shaking turned whole neighbourhoods of Palu to liquid, and the bay funnelled a tsunami into the city minutes later. Ground that looked solid simply flowed away.
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DownloadThe 2018 Palu earthquake struck on September 28, 2018, registering magnitude 7.5 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 178× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 0.26°S, 119.85°E, at a depth of about 20 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 4,340 people were killed.