Qa'dah 18, 1431, Oct 26, 2010, SPA - A powerful earthquake triggered a tsunami that pounded villages on remote islands off western Indonesia, killing at least 23 people and leaving more than 160 others missing, witnesses and officials said Tuesday. The death toll from the 7.7-magnitude quake, which struck 13 miles (20 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor late Monday, was expected to climb with reports about damage and injuries just starting to trickle in the next day. Mujiharto, who heads the Health Ministry's crisis center, said a 10-foot (three-meter) -high wave washed away hundreds of houses on Pagai and Silabu, part of the remote and sparsely populated Mentawai island chain, according to a report of the Associated Press.
