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Tsunami kills at least 110 on Java island
www.chinanews.cn 2006-07-18 10:13:58
(Source: Agencies)
Indonesian school boys play near the wreckage of their school Monday,
July 17, 2006 on the first day of the new school term in the Bantul
district of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Aid workers say attending school is
essential to restore a sense of normalcy to the lives of children
affected by the May 27 magnitude 5.9 quake, which killed more than 5,700
people and made up to a million homeless on Java island. (Source:AP)
July 18 - A tsunami crashed into beach resorts and fishing villages on
Java island Monday, killing at least 110 people and leaving scores
missing after bulletins failed to reach the region because no warning
system was in place, according to a latest report of AP.
The coastal area was spared by the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004, but
many residents recognized the danger when they saw the sea recede.
Frantic tourists and villagers shouted "Tsunami! Tsunami!" as the more
than 6-foot-high wave approached, some climbing trees or fleeing to
higher ground to escape. Others crowded into inland mosques to pray.
"We saw a big wall of black water. I ran with my son in my arms when I
looked back, the waves were at our house, they destroyed our house," said
Ita Anita, who was on the beach with her 11-month-old child and other
relatives. "The water knocked me down, my son slipped out of my hands and
was taken by the water."
Anita, 20, and her husband live 30 feet from the beach in Pangandaran, a
resort popular with tourists which appeared to be the hardest-hit area.
Also on the beach were her son, mother, sister, brother, nephews. All
except her mother are missing.
She said a series of large waves as tall as coconut trees came and then
the water began to recede.
"When the wave receded, there was total panic. Everybody was looking for
everybody," Anita said from her hospital bed at the Pangandaran medical
clinic. She said she was swept inland by the wave into a rice paddy,
tossed around and dragged across asphalt before she managed to climb to
safety on the roof of a house.
Regional agencies had warned that a 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck
150 miles off Indonesia's southern coast was strong enough to create a
tsunami on Java. But there was no warning system for those on the
southern coast.
At the Pangandaran medical clinic, 46 bodies were laid out in yellow body
bags and weeping family members were coming in and identifying the dead.
At least 62 bodies had been found in Pangandaran, said local police chief
Syamsuddin Janieb. Another 44 others were recovered in Ciamis and other
nearby districts, officials said. El-Shinta radio station said four other
corpses were found elsewhere along Java's southern coast.
"We are still evacuating areas and cross-checking data," Red Cross
official Arifin Muhadi told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, thousands of terrified residents set up camp in the hills
overlooking the sea.
Boats crashed to shore, some slamming into hotels, and houses and
restaurants were flattened along a 110-mile stretch of the densely
populated island's southern coast.
Jan Boeken, from Antwerp, Belgium, said he was sitting at a bar when his
waiter started screaming.
"I looked back at the beach and saw a big wall of thundering black water
coming toward us," said the 53-year-old, who escaped with minor cuts to
the head and knees. "I ran, but I got trapped in the kitchen, I couldn't
get out. I got hit in the body by debris and my lungs filled with water."
Most of the victims were believed to be Indonesians, but at least one
Swedish tourist was being treated for injuries at a hospital near
Pangandaran and his two sons, 5 and 10, were missing, said Jan Janonius,
a Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman.
A witness told el-Shinta he saw the ocean withdraw 1,500 feet from the
beach a half-hour before the powerful wave smashed ashore, a typical
phenomenon before a tsunami.
"I could see fish jumping around on the ocean floor," Miswan said.
Witnesses said the wave came several hundred yards inland in some places.
Buildings sit close to the beach in Pangandaran.
Pedi Mulyadi, a 43-year-old food vendor, said he was waiting on the beach
for customers when the wave struck, killing his wife, Ratini, 33. The
pair were clinging to one another when they were swallowed by the torrent
of water and pulled 300 feet inland, he said.
"Then we were hit, I think by a piece of wood," Mulyadi said. "When the
water finally pulled away, she was dead. Oh my God, my wife is gone, just
like that."
Roads were blocked and power cut to much of the area. Damage and
casualties were reported at several places along the 110 miles of beach
affected, officials and media reports said.
"All the houses are destroyed along the beach," one woman, Teti, told
el-Shinta radio. "Small hotels are destroyed and at least one restaurant
was washed away."
Indonesia has installed a warning system across much of Sumatra island
but not on Java. The government has been planning to extend the warning
system there by 2007.
Java was hit seven weeks ago by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake that killed
more than 5,800 people, but was spared by the 2004 tsunami that killed
216,000 people, nearly half of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.
The May earthquake did not affect the part of the island hit by Monday's
tsunami, which was spawned by a quake that struck deep beneath the Indian
Ocean 150 miles southwest of Java's coast.
The quake struck at 3:24 p.m., causing tall buildings to sway hundreds of
miles away in the capital, Jakarta. The strength of the temblor was
revised upward from magnitude 7.1 after a review by a seismologist, the
U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was followed by a series of
powerful aftershocks.
After the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's
Meteorological Agency issued warnings saying there could be a tsunami in
the Indian Ocean. The tsunami struck Java about an hour after the quake
and its effects could be felt as far as Bali island and near Australia's
Coco Islands.
Indonesia is on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes
and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
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