Jakarta: Some 1,200 Indonesian convicts escaped from three different detention facilities in the devastated region of Sulawesi following an earthquake and tsunami disaster, a justice ministry official said on Monday.
The mass prison break happened after the powerful tremor sparked a wall of water that devastated the small city of Palu Friday.
Ministry of Justice official Sri Puguh Utami said inmates had fled from two overcapacity facilities in Palu and another in Donggala, an area also hit by the disaster.
"I'm sure they escaped because they feared they would be affected by the earthquake. This is for sure a matter of life and death for the prisoners," she said.
The facility in Donggala was set on fire and all 343 inmates were now on the run, Utami said.
Most of the convicts were jailed for corruption and narcotics offences, she said.
Five people convicted of terror-related crimes had been moved from the prison just days before the disaster.
Indonesian authorities scrambled on Monday to get aid and rescue equipment into quake-hit Sulawesi island, and prepared to bury some of the at least 832 dead, while the government said it would accept international help for disaster relief.
The confirmed toll of 832 dead looked certain to rise as rescuers slowly reached devastated outlying communities hit on Friday by the 7.5 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami waves as high as six metres (20 feet).
Dozens of people were reported to be trapped in the rubble of several hotels and a mall in the small city of Palu, 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Jakarta, with hundreds more feared buried in landslides that engulfed villages.
President Joko Widodo told reporters in Jakarta getting those people out was a priority.
"The evacuation is not finished yet, there are many places where the evacuation couldn't be done because of the absence of heavy equipment, but last night equipment started to arrive in Palu," Widodo said.
