Missing Australians Found Alive After Indonesian Tsunami

NINE Australians missing for almost 24 hours after a powerful earthquake triggered a deadly tsunami in Indonesia's west are safe and well.

The 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the remote Mentawai Island chain on Monday night, generating massive waves that swept ashore, killing at least 23 people and washing away hundreds of homes.

Disaster management officials in Jakarta on Tuesday put the number of missing at 167 but local officials said it was 380.

Nine Australians and a Japanese man were in the area aboard surf charter boat MV Southern Cross when the quake struck.

Fears had been growing for the vessel, skippered by Australian Chris Scurrah and Japanese Akinori Fujita.

But the men finally made contact with their Padang-based company Sumatran Surfariis (Surfariis) on Tuesday night.

"They are now safe, they have been found," staff member Yuli Rahmi told AAP.

"They only lost their phone signal, they didn't even feel any tsunami."

The men were now on land on the island of South Pagai, Ms Rahmi said.

The other Australian men on the Southern Cross journey were Clifford Humphries, Gary Mountford, Christopher Papallo, Alexander McTaggart, Neil Cox, Jeffrey Annesley, Stephen Reynolds and Colin Steele.

Earlier, humanitarian organisation SurfAid International had been coordinating a search for the vessel.

It's believed villages on the islands of Sipora, North Pagai and South Pagai have all been affected by the tsunami.

One official said ten villages had been "swept away".

With bad weather hampering rescue efforts the death toll was expected to rise overnight.

The quake, which was followed by several powerful aftershocks, also shook Padang, sending panicked residents into the streets.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire and is very prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

More than 1100 people were killed when a powerful quake hit near Padang last year.

In 2004 a tsunami caused by a magnitude-9 earthquake off Sumatra killed an estimated 230,000 people.

source: dailytelegraph