Tearful parents searched Tuesday for missing children and soldiers dug
through the debris of homes flattened by the second tsunami to hit Indonesia in
as many years. At least 306 people were killed, officials said, with at
least 160 others missing.
Police check the
identity of the dead at a hospital in Pangandaran. Rescuers desperately
scoured debris for survivors of the tsunami that killed more than 300
people and left dozens missing when it slammed into Indonesia's Java
coast. [AFP] |
Bodies covered in white sheets piled up at makeshift morgues with the corpse
of at least one woman lying on a beach long popular with local and foreign
tourists.
"I don't mind losing any of my property, but please God return my son," said
Basril, a villager, as he and his wife searched though mounds of debris piled up
at Pangandaran resort on Java island's southern coast.
The area hit by Monday's disaster was spared by the devastating 2004 Asian
tsunami, and many residents said they did not even feel the 7.7-magnitude
undersea quake that unleashed the two-meter (two-yard) -high wall of water.
But some recognized the danger when they saw the sea recede and fled to
higher ground, screaming "Tsunami! Tsunami!" A black wave shot to shore a half
hour later, witnesses said, sending boats, cars and motorbikes crashing into
resorts and fishing villages.
The death toll rose to at least 262, officials and media reports said, with
the numbers expected to grow.
"We are still finding many bodies, many are stuck in the ruins of the
houses," said local police chief Syamsuddin Janieb, who said at least 172 people
were killed and 85 others were missing in the Panganderan area alone.
A Pakistani national, a Swedish national and a Dutch national were among the
dead, he said, but did not give their genders.
At least 23,000 people fled their homes, either because they were destroyed
or in fear of another tsunami, so accounting for the 170 missing could take
time, other officials said Tuesday.
