Indonesia tsunami worsened by shape of Palu bay: scientists

The tsunami that ravaged the Indonesian city of Palu was outsized compared to the earthquake that spawned it, but other factors -- including a long, narrow bay -- conspired to create monster waves, scientists say.

At least 844 people are already known to have died in the disaster, and officials say that toll is likely to rise -- perhaps into the thousands.

The 7.5-magnitude quake, which struck early evening on Friday -- a time when many in the Muslim-majority country would have been at the mosque -- brought buildings down all over Palu and its surrounding area. But

it was an unlikely confluence of geophysical conditions that gave rise to a localised tsunami that washed away many other structures and certainly added to the human cost.

"The waves were at least two-to-three metres high, and possibly twice that," said Jane Cunneen, a research fellow at Curtin University's Faculty of Science and Engineering in Bentley, Western Australia, and an architect of the

Indian Ocean's tsunami ...