More Than 300 Dead in Java Tsunami

More than 300 people were reported killed this morning and at least 160 missing as rescue workers uncovered the full extent of yesterday's tsunami on the Indonesian island of Java.

Dawn revealed a state of devastation in the quiet resort of Pangandaran, with hundreds of emergency workers picking through the wreckage of the two-metre wave for survivors or for the dead, whose shrouded bodies were crowded into makeshift morgues.

The tsunami struck yesterday afternoon after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit the ocean floor off Java's southern coast, causing buildings to sway in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and unleashing the most fatal wave to have hit the country since the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami caused an estimated 230,000 deaths, nearly 170,000 of them in Indonesia.

Witnesses said the wave of black water sent boats, cars and motorbikes crashing through flimsy bamboo-built resorts and fishing villages, flooding areas 300 metres inland.

One survivor, Min Laeni, said she had been walking along western Pangandaran beach last night when the tsunami hit.

"We were on western beach at about 3.30pm yesterday when we saw how the water rose to as high as a coconut tree. Then we ran as fast as possible to save ourselves, but unluckily I was trapped in the water and, when I regained consciousness, I found myself in a hospital," she told the Indonesian Antara news agency.

"We saw a big wall of black water. I ran with my son in my arms and, when I looked back, the waves were at our house; they destroyed our house," said Ita Anita, who was on the beach with her 11-month-old child and other relatives.

"The water knocked me down, my son slipped out of my hands and was taken by the water."

Emergency workers said it would take time to come up with a full death toll because 23,000 people had fled their homes, either because their dwellings had been destroyed by the initial tsunami or because they feared the impact of a second wave. At least 181 people were killed and 85 missing in the Pangandaran area alone.

Pedi Mulyadi, a 43-year-old food vendor, said he was waiting on the beach for customers when the wave struck, killing his wife, Ratini, 33. The pair were clinging to one another when they were swallowed by the torrent of water and pulled 30 meters inland, he said.

"Then we were hit, I think by a piece of wood," Mulyadi said. "When the water finally pulled away, she was dead. Oh my God, my wife is gone, just like that."

"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 rubble piled up at the Pangandaran resort on the southern coast of the island of Java.

Pangandaran is a popular tourist area, and officials reported that Dutch, Swedish, Pakistani, Japanese and Saudi Arabian victims were among those killed.

A tsunami early-warning system that is being installed across Indonesia in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day disaster has not yet been set up in Java, so there was no advance notice of yesterday's wave.

It comes just seven weeks after a 5.9-magnitude earthquake in central Java killed more than 5,800 people.