INDONESIA: Indonesia tsunami death toll tops 350 with hundreds missing

The death toll passed 350 on Tuesday (July 18) after a strong undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami that smashed into fishing villages and resorts on Indonesia's Java island. At least four non-Indonesians were among the dead and 54,000 people were displaced. "Among the dead foreigners are one Japanese, one Belgium, one Swedish and five Saudi Arabia nationals injured," said Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the Presidential palace after a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday. An official said one of the four dead foreigners was a Dutch national. Four fishermen from Cilacap, Central Java were out at sea in a fishing boat when the earthquake struck. They drifted for 12 hours clinging to the upturned boat and jerry cans in the middle of the sea. They were rescued by an oil tanker belonging to Pertamina, the country's state oil company. Rescue workers and soldiers worked through Tuesday trying to retrieve bodies still trapped under rubble, while relatives began burying loved ones lost in the deadly tsunami. Family members of Suhartini only managed to locate the 62-year-old grandmother in the makeshift morgue at the local clinic late on Tuesday. She was separated from her grandchildren while fleeing from the rushing seawater. Suhartini's family took her body for ritual washing before her burial. No tsunami warning system has been set up for the southern coast of Java. An Indonesian warning system was supposed to be up and running by now after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the worst on record, that killed 230,000, including 170,000 in Indonesia, but it has stalled. A government official assigned to the project admitted that no tsunami buoys were in operation after Indonesia launched a first stage of its warning system off the coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra last year. Kalla told reporters the government will build an early warning system in Java and other areas in Indonesia in three years. But despite the lack of official warnings many residents and tourists recognised the signs and fled to higher ground as the sea receded before huge waves came crashing ashore. The waves flung cars, motorbikes and boats into hotels and storefronts, flattened homes and restaurants, and flooded rice fields up to 500 metres (1,640 ft) from the sea along a stretch of the densely populated southern Java coastline. Anxious survivors lifted yellow sheets covering dozens of bodies lining a hospital floor as they searched for relatives in Pangandaran, which bore the brunt of the damage. Some of the homeless were using floormats and sheets of plastic to make temporary shelters on hillsides on Tuesday. Relief agencies had yet to supply tents in the Pangandaran area, although truckloads of aid were beginning to arrive. The U.S. Geological Survey rated the undersea quake's magnitude at 7.7. with its epicentre about 180 km (110 miles) off the hardest hit spot on Java's southern coast. 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, one near the city of Yogyakarta in central Java killed more than 5,700.

ITN Source | July 19, 2006

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