An international Caritas team is preparing to head to Padang to assess the damage caused by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of Western Sumatra in Indonesia.

With communication and electricity lines down and the airport closed, very little information is available and access from outside is difficult. There are fears for communities in the quake-hit area as Padang, the largest city in Western Sumatra, is a highly populated area of 900,000 people.

The government is reporting a number of casualties, thousands trapped under rubble, and a hospital badly damaged in Padang.

The role of the Caritas team will be to make a quick assessment of needs of survivors and coordinate the response.

This is the second powerful earthquake to hit Indonesia in a month. On 2 September, Java suffered a 7.2 magnitude earthquake which killed dozens of people.

Please contact Michelle Hough on +39 06 69879721/+39 334 2344136 or hough@caritas.va for more information.