Tsunami-hit Indonesia limps back to normal

Pangandaran (Indonesia), Jul 23: Indonesian Christians in tsunami-hit areas prayed in church today as life slowly limped back to normal six days after the disaster that killed nearly 700 people.

In his service, Reverend Rudolf George Sorongan urged people to be strong after Monday's tsunami that displaced thousands of people along a 300-km stretch of the south coast of Java, Indonesia's most populous island.

''We have to be resolute in facing this ordeal because God will protect us. We leave it to God for his protection,'' Sorongan told a gathering in the badly-hit beach town of Pangandaran at the first Sunday service after the diaster.

Indonesia has the world's largest population of Muslims but there is a small community of around 300 Christians in Pangandaran and surrounding areas.

People who came for the service said they were thankful for the relatives who had survived the tsunami, sparked by an undersea earthquake of 7.7 magnitude, that struck without any warning to coastal residents.

Wagirah Ibrahim, a 70-year-old woman, said she lost two grand-children in the tsunami, but was happy she was reunited with her great grand-children in a shelter the next day.

''I was with my two great grand-children, when the water from the beach rose. We ran as fast as we could,'' Ibrahim said.

People have been returning to their homes in an effort to pick up the pieces after the devastating tsunami, the latest in a string of disasters to hit Indonesia. These include the massive December 2004 tsunami, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods.

The aid network in Indonesia, a vast nation of 220 million, has been stretched thin by the disasters of the past two years. The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 around the Indian Ocean, a majority of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.

Work is still going on at the site of the Yogyakarta earthquake in May which killed 5,000 people, reconstruction efforts continue in Aceh, and Indonesia is also struggling to contain one of the world's worst outbreaks of bird flu.

Aid has been pouring in for people hit by Monday's tsunami, but fears of disease have also grown as thousands are still camping out in the heat with no clean water.

Several thousand people fled to camps in hills above Pangandaran after Monday's tsunami that displaced some 45,000. Some are still there as they have lost their homes, while many fear being caught in another tsunami if they go back.

Health officials say there have been reports of respiratory infections, but they were not serious. They also said there had been no reports of diarrhea or other infectious diseases, and health authorities had started giving survivors measles, tetanus, and cholera shots from the first day.

About 100 Indonesian Red Cross workers sprayed disinfectant in houses and inns along coastal areas in a bid to reduce the risk of disease.

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

REUTERS