Indonesia tsunami toll 231, hunt on for more

PANGANDARAN, Indonesia, July 18: At least 230 people were killed after a tsunami smashed into fishing villages and resorts on Indonesia's Java island, following a strong undersea earthquake, rescue officials today said.

No warnings were reported despite efforts around the region to establish early warning systems after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people, including 170,000 in Indonesia.

But many residents and tourists recognised the signs and fled to higher ground as the sea receded before huge waves came crashing ashore.

Officials said 231 people were confirmed dead and nearly 130 people were missing after yesterday's huge waves crashed into Java's southern coast, washing away buildings, wooden cottages and kiosks lining the shoreline facing the Indian Ocean.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the death toll was expected to climb.

''In a tsunami, it is possible that the number (of dead) will increase, especially those who are missing or who have been washed away to sea,'' he told Elshinta radio.

Kalla said the government's priority was to provide healthcare, food and shelter and then move to evaluating the damage and reconstruction of houses.

Soldiers were trying to retrieve bodies trapped under a collapsed concrete wall.

Metro TV reported several bodies were found in trees along Pangandaran beach near the town of Ciamis, 270 km (170 miles) southeast of Jakarta.

A regional government official in the most hard-hit area said that deaths there totalled 171, while the Indonesian Red Cross said the dead in other areas totalled 60.

There were no reports of casualties or damage in any other country from yesterday's tsunami.

POPULAR TOURIST SPOT

Pangandaran, the area that bore the brunt of the tsunami, is a popular tourist spot with many small hotels on the beach. It is close to a nature reserve. ''Yesterday I was on the eastern beach, people were running and so was I ... I saw how the water rose. It was about 7 to 10 metres,'' Rizal, a survivor told Elshinta radio as he picked through the debris of his home.

Anxious survivors lifted sheets covering dozens of bodies lining a hospital floor as they searched for relatives missing after the waves battered their homes, leaving the area strewn with bamboo poles, fallen trees and collapsed straw huts.

TV footage showed a man flinging himself down onto the corpse of a small child, her body streaked with mud, alongside lines of bodies under plastic sheets in a makeshift morgue.

''The search for victims is still going on. We will search for bodies and possible survivors,'' Diding, an official from the worst-hit area, Pangandaran, told Reuters.

''This morning the TNI (military) troops and other volunteers have arrived.'' Dozens of people fled in the dark on motorcycles and cars with horns blaring and headlights flashing early today as rumours swirled of another tsunami, but government officials assured them there was no reason to panic.

A distraught woman was wailing and throwing her hands in the air in a rubber plantation office in the port of Cilacap.

Beside her, more than 100 people huddled beside rows of sleeping children covered with batik sheets.

Many people returned to salvage belongings such as boat engines and clothes from the wreckage of their homes after the tsunami destroyed fishing boats and damaged cafes, motels and restaurants up to 500 metres from the coastline.

The US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the earthquake's magnitude was 7.2, while the US Geological Survey put it at 7.7. Indonesia's state meteorology and geophysics agency said the quake's strength was 6.8 on the Richter Scale.

Indonesia's 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the ''Pacific Ring of Fire''.

Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia. In May, an earthquake near the city of Yogyakarta in central Java killed more than 5,700.

REUTERS

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