13 killed as Indonesia quake collapses buildingsStory Highlights
NEW: Collapsing buildings crush 13 victims, official says; hundreds injured
NEW: Indonesians flock to Internet, Twitter in search of quake information
Lights out, phones down in West Sumatra, Indonesian officials say
Event in Indonesia follows Tuesday's quake and tsunami in Samoan Islands
updated 39 minutes agoNext Article in World »
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- A major earthquake that struck Indonesia Wednesday killed at least 13 people and injured hundreds more, an official said.
Wednesday's earthquake was centered in Indonesia's West Sumatra province.
1 of 2 The 13 were crushed when the quake collapsed buildings, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Ministry of Health's crisis center. Hundreds more were injured, he said.
The quake caused widespread power and phone outages, making it difficult to assess the scope of the damage.
It struck at around 5 p.m. local time, about 33 miles (53 kilometers) from Padang, the capital city of West Sumatra. Padang is home to more than 800,000 people.
The state-run Antara news agency said the earthquake "killed tens of people and destroyed hundreds of buildings including houses, shopping centers and mosques," though that report did not cite its sources.
The U.S Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.6.
The earthquake was felt in cities nearby such as Medan and Gengkulu, where people panicked and ran outside in search of higher ground, fearing a tsunami.
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The region is accustomed to regular earthquakes, and the local population has been taught to identify safe places in case of a tsunami, Sean Granville-Ross, the Mercy Corps country director for Indonesia, told CNN by phone from the country.
"We hope that preparation is now paying off," he said.
But if many homes have been destroyed in the densely populated area, people may be spending the night with no shelter, he said.
Phone lines were apparently down in many parts of Padang. Indonesia's Tempo Interactive, a media outlet based in Jakarta, had trouble reaching its correspondent in the West Sumatra city, according to journalist Purwani Diyah Prabandari.
"I hope it's just the cell phone connection," Prabandari told CNN.
Indonesians trying to find out more about the Sumatra quake flooded the Internet, including Twitter. Some expressed concern for relatives and friends in Padang.
"Dear God, please send down your angels to hug and protect my grandpa in Padang," said one Twitter post.
The Web site for one of Indonesia's main newspapers, The Jakarta Globe, crashed for a while, partly as a result of the heavy traffic from people trying to find out about the quake, the paper said in a Twitter post.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a tsunami watch for Indonesia, India, Thailand and Malaysia, but canceled it soon after.
The temblor did generate a tsunami just under one foot high, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
On Tuesday, a magnitude 8.0 quake-triggered tsunami killed at least 111 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga. Read latest news on the Samoa quake and tsunami
The tsunami waves swept across a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean, killing dozens and flattening or submerging villages.
Officials warned that the death toll could rise as rescue workers start to reach outlying villages and discover new casualties.
The U.S. Geological Survey declined to say whether the two quakes were linked.
"The simple answer is we can't speculate on a connection," Carrieann Bedwell of the USGS told CNN. "Both are in highly seismic areas."
The epicenters of the two temblors are about 4,700 miles (7,600 kilometers) apart.
