http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... w_18072006
Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java
By Marianne Kearney in Jakarta and Sebastien Berger
(Filed: 18/07/2006)
An undersea earthquake sent a tsunami crashing into the Indonesian island of Java yesterday, killing at least 86 people and flattening homes and beach huts in resorts and villages along its south coast.
Scores more people were missing last night and the toll was expected to rise after areas of the densely-populated shore were destroyed by waves several yards high.
Thousands fled to higher ground and were afraid to return home until the aftershocks ceased.
The earthquake, whose epicentre was 110 miles offshore at a depth of six miles, struck in mid-afternoon and had a magnitude of 7.7 on the Richter Scale. It was followed by five powerful aftershocks, two of them with magnitudes above six.
That, however, was less powerful than the great earthquake of Boxing Day 2004, which unleashed a tsunami that devastated the coast of Sumatra, west of Java, and many other Indian Ocean shorelines.
Among the worst-affected areas was the resort of Pandangaran, described as Java's answer to Bali and popular with foreign divers, where fishing boats were swept into beachfront buildings.
Cries of "Tsunami! Tsunami!" went up as the wall of water approached and residents and tourists climbed trees or crowded into mosques in an effort to escape.
"When the waves came I heard people screaming and then I heard something like a plane about to crash nearby and I just ran," said Uli Sutarli, a plantation worker. "All wooden structures are flattened but hotels made out of concrete are still standing."
Kirsten Hitchcamp, the German owner of Adam's Homestay in the town, said many buildings collapsed in the tremor and she saw dozens of people engulfed by the water. "Everybody ran but lots of people got swept away, lots of people are looking for their kids," she said.
Agus, a policeman, said: "I think there will be a lot of fatalities because probably they are buried under rubble."
The extent of the destruction zone was not clear because many coast roads were blocked, there was no power and the telephone system was down.
In Batu Keras, a fishing village about 20 miles from Pandangaran, Budi, 24, said he was swept more than half a mile inland by a series of waves while surfing. "About 10 waves came, they were huge and everyone ran. There were around eight tourists, including some French guys, learning to surf. I saw them carried by the whitewash but I don't know if they survived."
Regional agencies issued tsunami warnings, but Indonesia does not have a siren system in place to broadcast such alerts.
A government official said at least 10,000 people from Pangandaran had fled to the hills. "We're still traumatised and can feel the aftershocks," he said.
A British Embassy spokesman in Jakarta said officials were not aware of any British casualties.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.
Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java
Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... w_19072006
Tsunami death toll rises to 341
By Marianne Kearney, in Jakarta and Sebastien Berger
(Filed: 19/07/2006)
Rescuers pulled corpse after corpse from wrecked buildings along Java's south coast yesterday, as the toll from this week's tsunami rose to more than 300.
In the resort of Pangandaran villagers searched through the rubble trying to find survivors, but instead recovered only bodies.
"I don't mind losing any of my property, but please God, return my son," said Basril, as he and his wife tried to find the boy.
Irah, a beachfront vendor, was playing with her six-year-old son when the tsunami struck, tearing him from her grasp. "The water was too strong," she said as she dug through wreckage with her hands. "Oh God. Eki, where are you?"
As soldiers pulled a young child's corpse from the mud before washing it for a Muslim burial, Syamsuddin Janieb, the area's police chief, said: "We are still finding many bodies. Many are stuck in the ruins of the houses."
Last night officials put the number of dead at 341. The tsunami, estimated at between six and 10 feet high, was triggered by a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake and smashed into a swathe of coastline scores of miles long.
The Jakarta government admitted last night that warnings of a possible tsunami from the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii and Japan's Meteorological Agency were not passed on by the Indonesian authorities.
Indonesia does not have a tsunami alert system in place, but with only a short time between warning and impact, it is open to question how many people could have been evacuated and whether many lives would have been saved.
Some survivors said they recognised the danger when the sea receded and fled, although in a grim echo of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami others rushed out to pick up flapping fish stranded in the shallows.
"There were lots of kids on the beach, and lots were washed away," said Sofyan Ansori, who was visiting Pangandaran with his Australian wife and two children.
When the wave thundered into the resort it swept boats, cars and people hundreds of yards inland.
Hamed Abukhamiss, a Saudi holidaymaker, was in a beachside cafe in Pangandaran with his wife and children. At first no one believed his eldest son Yousif, 12, when he saw the wave in the distance through binoculars and yelled "Tsunami."
Mr Abukhamiss said: "My wife said 'You take the girl, I'll take the boy.' Suddenly we were swept away by powerful water."
Holding his daughter, he was sucked into the waves. "I was inside a spinning washing machine, inside a tunnel. At one point when I was underwater I told myself, that's it for me - but I didn't give up. I don't know how I'm alive. It's a miracle."
The waters receded, but then he found the body of his wife Sahar, crushed against a wall by a car, still clutching their four-year-old son.
"I lost my wife and my son," he said in a half whisper. "I just want to go home because I can't stand it here. Every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing my wife's face and hearing her last words to me."
At Pangandaran hospital a steady stream of injured arrived for treatment but doctors said they did not have enough equipment to cope. A Swedish man and a Dutch national are known to have died, with at least two other foreigners believed killed. But a spokesman for the British embassy in Jakarta said no British casualties had been reported.
More than 50,000 people are estimated to have fled their homes for higher ground fearing an aftershock, some assembling makeshift shelters of bamboo and plastic.
Elan Jayalani, 25, from Batu Keras, 20 miles west of Pangandaran, said: "Even injured people are living in the forest. We need medicine and antiseptic because many people are wounded. Everybody is panicking, even people whose houses are OK are too scared to stay in them."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.
Tsunami death toll rises to 341
By Marianne Kearney, in Jakarta and Sebastien Berger
(Filed: 19/07/2006)
Rescuers pulled corpse after corpse from wrecked buildings along Java's south coast yesterday, as the toll from this week's tsunami rose to more than 300.
In the resort of Pangandaran villagers searched through the rubble trying to find survivors, but instead recovered only bodies.
"I don't mind losing any of my property, but please God, return my son," said Basril, as he and his wife tried to find the boy.
Irah, a beachfront vendor, was playing with her six-year-old son when the tsunami struck, tearing him from her grasp. "The water was too strong," she said as she dug through wreckage with her hands. "Oh God. Eki, where are you?"
As soldiers pulled a young child's corpse from the mud before washing it for a Muslim burial, Syamsuddin Janieb, the area's police chief, said: "We are still finding many bodies. Many are stuck in the ruins of the houses."
Last night officials put the number of dead at 341. The tsunami, estimated at between six and 10 feet high, was triggered by a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake and smashed into a swathe of coastline scores of miles long.
The Jakarta government admitted last night that warnings of a possible tsunami from the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii and Japan's Meteorological Agency were not passed on by the Indonesian authorities.
Indonesia does not have a tsunami alert system in place, but with only a short time between warning and impact, it is open to question how many people could have been evacuated and whether many lives would have been saved.
Some survivors said they recognised the danger when the sea receded and fled, although in a grim echo of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami others rushed out to pick up flapping fish stranded in the shallows.
"There were lots of kids on the beach, and lots were washed away," said Sofyan Ansori, who was visiting Pangandaran with his Australian wife and two children.
When the wave thundered into the resort it swept boats, cars and people hundreds of yards inland.
Hamed Abukhamiss, a Saudi holidaymaker, was in a beachside cafe in Pangandaran with his wife and children. At first no one believed his eldest son Yousif, 12, when he saw the wave in the distance through binoculars and yelled "Tsunami."
Mr Abukhamiss said: "My wife said 'You take the girl, I'll take the boy.' Suddenly we were swept away by powerful water."
Holding his daughter, he was sucked into the waves. "I was inside a spinning washing machine, inside a tunnel. At one point when I was underwater I told myself, that's it for me - but I didn't give up. I don't know how I'm alive. It's a miracle."
The waters receded, but then he found the body of his wife Sahar, crushed against a wall by a car, still clutching their four-year-old son.
"I lost my wife and my son," he said in a half whisper. "I just want to go home because I can't stand it here. Every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing my wife's face and hearing her last words to me."
At Pangandaran hospital a steady stream of injured arrived for treatment but doctors said they did not have enough equipment to cope. A Swedish man and a Dutch national are known to have died, with at least two other foreigners believed killed. But a spokesman for the British embassy in Jakarta said no British casualties had been reported.
More than 50,000 people are estimated to have fled their homes for higher ground fearing an aftershock, some assembling makeshift shelters of bamboo and plastic.
Elan Jayalani, 25, from Batu Keras, 20 miles west of Pangandaran, said: "Even injured people are living in the forest. We need medicine and antiseptic because many people are wounded. Everybody is panicking, even people whose houses are OK are too scared to stay in them."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.
Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java
SnoozeControl wrote: I must be stupid or something, but when the news first came out, they said that a 'six foot tsunami' struck Jakarta and killed 86 people... I couldn't and still can't figure out how that could cause so much destruction.
It's not an ordinary wave. A tsunami 'wave' has the full weight and force of the sea behind it, unlike ordinary waves that are just peaks.
It's not an ordinary wave. A tsunami 'wave' has the full weight and force of the sea behind it, unlike ordinary waves that are just peaks.
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chonsigirl
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Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java
Oh, the story of the man and his wife is so sad.
I do not know how big the wave was, but it was the force of the wave, snooze. The earthquake was 7.7 and that is a big force to send the waves towards them. A wave with that much energy in it would knock anyone over, and when it receded carry them back out to sea-like in the story.
This story wasn't shown that much here, in comparisson to fighting in the Middle East!:mad:
I do not know how big the wave was, but it was the force of the wave, snooze. The earthquake was 7.7 and that is a big force to send the waves towards them. A wave with that much energy in it would knock anyone over, and when it receded carry them back out to sea-like in the story.
This story wasn't shown that much here, in comparisson to fighting in the Middle East!:mad: