INDONESIA: Indonesia tsunami kills over 270, including foreign tourists.

At least 256 people were killed after a tsunami smashed into fishing villages and resorts on Indonesia's Java island, following a strong undersea earthquake, a Red Cross official said on Tuesday (July 18). But later on Tuesday the death toll rose swiftly toward 300. At least four non-Indonesians were among the dead, 131 people were missing and 34,013 people were displaced, officials said. "We have 117 dead victims in the list, from surrounded area (Pangandaran) including four foreigners," said Kanda, a police officer in charge of listing the dead victims brought to a makeshift hospital. One of the four dead foreigners was Dutch national identified as Yuyun Ruhiyat, a local health department officer based in Ciamis regency, told Reuters. She had no information about the other three. No warnings were reported ahead of the waves despite regional efforts to establish early warning systems after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000, 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. The waves flung cars, motorbikes and boats into hotels and storefronts, flattened homes and restaurants, and flooded rice fields up to 500 metres from the sea along a stretch of the densely populated southern Java coastline. A Red Cross official who declined to be identified said at least 256 people were dead after Monday's (July 17) huge waves crashed into the Indian Ocean shoreline. Soldiers were trying to retrieve bodies trapped under rubble on Tuesday, while local TV reported several bodies were found in trees along Pangandaran beach near Ciamis town, 270 km (170 miles) southeast of Jakarta. No other country reported casualties or damage from Monday's tsunami. Pangandaran, which bore the brunt of the tsunami, is a popular tourist spot with many small hotels on the beach and a nature reserve nearby. Anxious survivors lifted yellow 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. Many people returned to salvage belongings such as boat engines and clothes from the wreckage of their homes. The U.S. Geological Survey rated the undersea quake's magnitude at 7.7. with its epicentre about 180 kms off the hardest hit spot on Java's southern coast. The U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake would not trigger "a destructive widespread tsunami threat", but could cause some local tsunamis. Indonesian authorities at first put the quake's magnitude at 5.5, unlikely to cause a tsunami given the epicentre's distance from shore and depth under the sea. They later upgraded the figure to 6.8. A much touted international warning system involving sophisticated detection buoys, which officials had hoped could be in place around the Indian Ocean by this time, has stalled. Lack of funds has crippled the creation of a tsunami warning system, leaving earthquake-prone Indonesia without a single working detection buoy, an official said on Tuesday, a day after a tsunami killed over 270 people. No sirens alerted residents in Pangandaran beach, the worst-hit area of Monday's tsunami 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 18, 2006

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