Death toll from Indonesia quake officially put at 1,117 - Xinhua

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JAKARTA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's West Sumatra province on Wednesday officially put the final death toll of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake on Sept. 30 at 1,117.

West Sumatra's Governor Gamawan Fauzi said that the latest data is final and he assured that casualty would not increase. However, figures for remote areas will not be verified until October 20.

The data was announced at 4 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) by the governor at the disaster integrated commando post in Padang City after holding coordination meeting with all apparatus of local governments hit by the earthquake.

"The final data showed that casualties are 1,117 and two people are declared missing. As many as 210 missing people at Padangpariaman regency are declared as victims. Meanwhile, the two missing people are still declared missing because their relatives are against their being declared dead," said Gamawan.

Other data showed that 1,214 people are heavily injured and 1,688 got light injuries.

Meanwhile, 135,448 houses are seriously damaged and 78,604 are lightly damaged.

Also damaged were 2,163 classrooms, 51 health facilities, 1,001worship houses, 21 bridges, 178 roads and 130 irrigation infrastructures.

Furthermore, Gamawan said that the data will be presented on Thursday to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta so that the central government will be able to decide the emergency response period.

Gamawan said he personally hopes that the period will be ended sooner than later.

"Prolonged emergency response will cause bad psychological effect to people," he said.

Gamawan intended to oblige all buildings to be fortified.

"At least, for public service (buildings), there would not be a bargain. They should obey the (quake) standard. For example, in Padang with assumption of 8 Richter scale quake, building should have three floors at maximum," he said.

Gamawan also said that careless local government officials in the construction regulation will be punished.