Indonesia - Security
Indonesia: Fear sparks scramble as Java tsunami toll passes 500
Source : Reuters 19.07.2006
By Ed Davies
PANGANDARAN, Indonesia, July 19 (Reuters) - An aftershock sent hundreds scrambling for high ground on Wednesday in fear of more giant waves, as rescuers pulled bodies from the debris and aid trickled into this Indonesian town two days after a tsunami.
While the death toll jumped to 525, a search continued for 273 people still missing after the tsunami smashed into a 300-km (186 mile) stretch of coast along southern Java on Monday,
A light aftershock that shook Pangandaran beach sent some people running, while others headed inland on motorcycles and cars as rumours circulated of a fresh tsunami.
Indonesian media questioned why there was no warning ahead of Monday's killer waves despite regional efforts to set up early alert systems after the massive Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.
The Jakarta Post said in an editorial the disaster agency had done "nothing of note to increase people's preparedness for disasters".
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters the government would build an early warning system in Java and other areas in Indonesia in three years.
Along the coastline, heavy equipment was deployed to help in the search for bodies left under the rubble when the waves rolled in after a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake.
MISSING FISHERMEN
Five bodies were found on beaches in the Pangandaran area alone early on Wednesday, Red Cross official Mehmet Selamat said.
"There are many fishermen missing." he said
Search and rescue official Hadi Tugiman told Reuters he expected the search effort to continue at least another three to four days.
Government officials said as many as 54,000 people were displaced from wrecked fishing villages, farms and beach resorts, adding to the rehabilitation headache for authorities after an earthquake that killed more than 5,700 people in central Java less than two months earlier.
Aid trucks started to arrive for the thousands who lost their homes or who, fearing further tsunamis, had fled to hills above the coast.
More than a dozen corpses in yellow body bags lay in a makeshift morgue near the devastated Pangandaran beach, a popular tourist spot known for its black-sand shore and barbeque seafood. A man wailed as he held the arm of a dead woman.
Officals said four foreigners, including a Dutch national, a Swede, a Japanese and a Belgian, were known killed in the quake.
"I saw a house coming towards me, but I couldn't run. It stopped 20 metres from me," Anne-Marie Kingmans, a Dutch tourist who survived, told Reuters.
"We heard no warning. People just came running," she said, adding that the waves washed a boat into the lobby of her hotel.
More than 4,000 people were staying in refugee camps in the hills above Pangandaran, Red Cross official Waar Soewardi told Reuters.
Others found refuge under homemade shelters or stayed inside mosques at Pangandaran and nearby Cilacap port, among the hardest-hit spots.
At one site eight large military tents were crowded with displaced people who were being given two meals a day. Food and water appeared to be in ample supply.
Protective vaccinations are a high priority, one health official said.
WRONG PREDICTION
Soft-drink and snack seller Mukasih, 25, said the tsunami destroyed both her kiosk and her home.
Mukasih suffered cuts and lacerations as the waves flung her and one of her children against a wall. She later found her husband and other child sheltering in a mosque.
Asked what her plans were, she said: "I don't know. I'm still thinking, but I don't want a shop on the beach again."
No tsunami warning system was set up for the southern coast of Java after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left 230,000 killed or missing, including 170,000 in Indonesia.
Some officials considered the area, about 270 km (170 miles) southeast of Jakarta, less likely to be hit by a tsunami than others in Indonesia.
"It turned out that our prediction was wrong," the Jakarta Post quoted Surono, a senior official of the country's earthquake agency, as saying. "Now, we believe that there are no tsunami-free areas along the southern coast of Java."
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".
(Additional reporting by Diyan Jari and Achmad Sukarsono)
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