Java Tsunami Update

AFP is reporting at least 340 dead so far in the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Java yesterday with search operations ongoing. The count is likely to rise.

In a harrowing reminder of the 2004 disaster that left 220,000 dead across Asia, walls of water up to three metres (10 feet) high smashed ashore Monday, toppling buildings and sending thousands of terrified residents fleeing.

The tsunami was triggered by a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake off the south coast of Java island, where no early warning system had yet been put in place and many residents had no inkling of the tragedy to come.

Saudi national Hamed Abukhamiss was among the survivors struggling to come to terms with losing loved ones, as he mourned his wife and three-year-old son.

Abukhamiss had been enjoying a drink at a beachside cafe in Pangandaran, one of Java's most beautiful and popular beaches, with his wife and two of his children, when they saw the tsunami approaching and tried to flee.

"My wife said, 'You take the girl, I'll take the boy!' Suddenly they were swept away by powerful water," he told AFP, choking back tears.

"At one point when I was underwater I told myself, that's it for me — but I didn't give up."

After combing through the wreckage of the pulverised beachfront, he found the lifeless body of his 30-year-old wife Sahar, smashed against a wall by their hire car as she still clutched the body of their three-year-old son.

"I don't know how I'm alive — it's a miracle," he said.

Agam, a blogger from Thailand has reports from closer to the scene:

This afternoon I'm seeing aerial video of the affected area, and the devastation (of what I presume is Pangandaran town) is just terrible. It's clear now that the choice of the word "tsunami" was not simply out of recent familiar use. It looks just like Aceh did, only on a smaller scale. A true tsunami wave it surely was, and as of this afternoon, it has claimed at least 339 lives. Tsunami warnings were actually issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning System, but there was no local system in place to transmit the warning to the affected area. The first wave struck land about one hour after the first quake. The yet unfinished nation-wide warning system is expected to be completed in 2009.

Besides the hundreds of local victims, foreign casualties include Pakistani, Dutch and American citizens staying at the resort area, according to MetroTV this evening. I am not impressed with Vice President Yusuf Kalla, as quoted by AP in the linked report.

Answering questions from reporters as to why no warning was issued, Vice President Jusuf Kalla claimed there was no need for one because most people fled inland after they felt the earthquake, fearing a tsunami.

"After the quake occurred, people ran to the hills so that is the reason the number of victims is not as great as in Aceh," he said in Jakarta. "So in actual fact there was a kind of natural early warning system."

The Indonesian government is playing Russian Roulette with the lives of it's citizens. Having no local system in place is inexcusable.