Scores Killed After Earthquake Sends Tsunami on to Javanese Beaches

An earthquake yesterday sent a tsunami several metres high crashing on to the beaches of southern Java, killing at least 82 people and leaving scores missing.

Pangandaran resort bore the brunt of the waves. But witnesses said "very many" flimsy homes along the coast for at least 20 miles in each direction had been destroyed as two waves, about seven metres (23ft) and two metres high, surged ashore. The water was reportedly waist-deep more than half a mile inland.

Much damage was inflicted by hundreds of wooden fishing boats becoming battering rams as they ploughed through shacks and fields. Power failed and fixed phone lines were cut. The Red Cross said at least 82 people were killed, most in Pangandaran, and 77 others were missing.

"We are still evacuating areas and cross-checking data," Arifin Muhadi of the Red Cross told the Associated Press.

Rescue teams said the toll was likely to rise significantly because they were still searching through rubble, many roads were impassable, many houses had been washed away and in pitch darkness it was difficult to see corpses.

Most Indonesian schools reopened yesterday after a four-week holiday. One Pangandaran resident said the toll would have been much higher if the earthquake had happened 24 hours earlier when the beach was still teeming with holidaymakers.

Pangandaran lies on a small peninsula jutting out on to the Indian Ocean. While the tsunami surged ashore on both the west and east beaches, the damage was worse on the east beach because there were fewer concrete hotels to absorb the force of the waves.

Thousands of residents along Java's south coast fled to higher ground and refused to come down for many hours.

"We felt the earthquake very strongly at about 3.20pm," Miswan, whose house was 50 metres from the coast, told the Elshinta radio station. "Then about half an hour later I saw in the distance out to sea very big waves coming towards the shore. That's when we turned and fled as fast as we could."

Another witness, Kirsten, told SCTV television: "Many houses crashed to the ground straightaway. The electricity went off immediately and we ran to higher ground as fast as we could. The water was still waist-deep 500 metres inland."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the evacuation of everyone in areas along the south-west coast considered at risk of further tsunamis.

The epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude quake was about 150 miles off the south-west coast of Java. It was followed by five big aftershocks of magnitude 6.1 and many smaller ones. The tremors shook buildings in Jakarta, 170 miles away. A 9.2-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra island on Boxing Day 2004 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean.

India issued a tsunami warning for its Andaman and Nicobar Islands, officials said. Australia's Christmas Island was also thought to be at risk. By evening none of these places had reported tsunami waves more than a metre higher than normal.