Indonesia tsunami death toll hits 113

A tsunami that pounded several islands in western Indonesia killed at least 113 people and scores more are missing, officials say.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake triggered the three-metre wave that washed hundreds of homes into the sea late Monday.

Rescuers were having a hard time reaching the Mentawai islands, closest to the epicentre, on Tuesday because of strong winds and rough seas.

But reports of damage and injuries were steadily climbing.

Mujiharto, who heads the Health Ministry's crisis centre, said 113 bodies have been recovered so far. The number of missing was between 150 and 500.

The fault that ruptured Monday, running the length of the west coast of Sumatra island, also caused thequake that unleashed a monster tsunami around the Indian Ocean in 2004, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Getting to the Mentawais, a popular surfing spot 280 kilometres from the Sumatra coast, takes 12 hours and the islands are reachable only by boat.

'Scrambled up the highest trees'

A group of Australians said they were hanging out on the back deck of their chartered surfing vessel, anchored in a nearby bay, when the temblor hit. It generated a wave that caused them to smash into a neighbouring boat, and before they knew it, a fire was ripping through their cabin.

"We threw whatever we could that floated surfboards, fenders then we jumped into the water," Rick Hallet told Australia's Nine Network. "Fortunately, most of us had something to hold on to ... and we just washed in the wetlands, and scrambled up the highest trees that we could possibly find and sat up there for an hour and a half."

Water in some places reached rooftops, and in Muntei Baru, a village on Silabu, 80 per cent of the houses were damaged.

Some 3,000 people were seeking shelter Tuesday in emergency camps, and the crews from several ships were still unaccounted for in the Indian Ocean, officials said earlier in the day.

Separately on Tuesday, emergency officials were rushing to evacuate several thousand residents from the slopes of the country's most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, as scientists warned that the volatile volcano had started to erupt.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.