Carita: A tsunami following a volcanic eruption in Indonesia has killed at least 168 people, with hundreds more injured, officials said today.
“The total number of people who have died is 168 people, 745 were injured and 30 people are missing,” Indonesia’s national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
It slammed without warning into tourist beaches and coastal areas around Indonesia’s Sunda Strait on Saturday night, sending panicked holidaymakers and residents fleeing.
Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the wave, which hit the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java about 9.30 pm following the eruption of a volcano known as the child of the legendary Krakatoa, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
Search and rescue teams were scouring rubble for survivors. Images broadcast on television showed the wave pushed a tangled mess of corrugated steel roofing, timber, rubble and flotsam inland from the coast at Carita beach, a popular day-tripping spot on the west coast of Java.
Elsewhere it uprooted trees and left a trail of debris strewn across the ground. Muhammad Bintang, who was at Carita beach when the wave hit, described a sudden surge of water that plunged the tourist spot into darkness. “We arrived at 9 pm for our holiday and suddenly the water came — it went dark, the electricity is off,” the 15-year-old told AFP. “It’s messy outside and we still cannot access the road.”
In Lampung province, on the other side of the strait, Lutfi Al Rasyid said he fled the beach in Kalianda city in fear for his life.
“I could not start my motorbike so I left it and I ran… I just prayed and ran as far as I could,” the 23-year-old told AFP. Authorities say the tsunami may have been triggered by an abnormal tidal surge due to a new moon and an underwater landslide following the eruption of Anak Krakatoa, which forms a small island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.
‘The combination caused a sudden tsunami that hit the coast,’ Nugroho said, but added that Indonesia’s geological agency was working to ascertain exactly how it happened. He added that the death toll would likely increase.
Video footage posted to social media by Nugroho showed panicked residents clutching flashlights and fleeing for higher ground. Indonesian authorities initially claimed the wave was not a tsunami, but instead a tidal surge and urged the public not to panic.
Nugroho later apologised for the mistake on Twitter, saying because there was no earthquake it had been difficult to ascertain the cause of the incident early on. “If there is an initial error we’re sorry,” he wrote.
Most recently in the city of Palu on Sulawesi island a quake and tsunami killed thousands of people. In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia killed 2.2 lakh people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 1.68 lakh in Indonesia. Anak Krakatoa is one of 127 active volcanoes which run the length of the archipelago.