Some 1,200 Indonesian convicts escaped from three different detention facilities in the devastated region of Sulawesi following an earthquake and tsunami disaster, a justice ministry official said Monday.

The mass prison break happened after the powerful tremor sparked a wall of water that devastated the small city of Palu on Friday. Ministry of Justice official Sri Puguh Utami said inmates had fled from two overcapacity facilities in Palu and another in Donggala, an area also hit by the disaster.