WORLD / Asia-Pacific

Indonesia had no way of warning islanders
(AP)
Updated: 2006-07-18 20:38

Within minutes of the earthquake, regional tsunami centers warned it had the potential to send a deadly wave speeding toward Indonesia. But the country had no way of passing the information onto those in its path until it was too late.

Indonesia was the worst hit by the 2004 tsunami, and Monday's disaster shows how unprepared the sprawling island nation remains in dealing with the threat of tsunami triggered by the awesome seismic forces that lie beneath it.

An Indonesian man carries his belongings as he walks past by a destroyed house at a tsunami-ravaged area in Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, July 18, 2006. Desperate villagers and soldiers dug through destroyed homes and hotels looking for survivors Tuesday of a tsunami on Indonesia's Java island, as the death toll rose to at least 262, officials and media reports said.
An Indonesian man carries his belongings as he walks past by a destroyed house at a tsunami-ravaged area in Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, July 18, 2006. Desperate villagers and soldiers dug through destroyed homes and hotels looking for survivors Tuesday of a tsunami on Indonesia's Java island, as the death toll rose to at least 262, officials and media reports said. [AP]

Most people at this devastated beach resort did not feel the 7.7-magnitude earthquake and few noticed the ocean receding - a typical phenomenon before a tsunami - because the tide was already low and the effect was not especially pronounced, local residents and tourists said Tuesday.

"The police and local officials did not give us any warning whatsoever about the tsunami," said Supratu, a fisherman. "Suddenly this big wall of water appeared and I started screaming and running."

The earthquake struck at 3:19 p.m., and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert 17 minutes later saying a tsunami was possible. The first of several waves hit Java's southern coast at around 4:15 p.m. - nearly an hour after the temblor, witnesses said.

Indonesia initially registered the quake at under magnitude 6, and by the time government scientists realized its true power it was too late to warn government offices across the danger zone, said scientist Fauzi, who goes by only one name.

We tried to radio them "but there was no way we had the time," he said.

But even if they'd succeeded, without an automated system in place to pass the message on to villagers via loudspeakers on beaches or mobile phone text messages, the evacuation of significant numbers of people would have been unlikely.

The tsunami killed at least 339 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

With international help, Indonesia has begun installing a tsunami warning system off Aceh province on Sumatra island, where more than 130,000 of the some 216,000 victims of the 2004 tsunami lived. It plans to roll out the system across the country of 18,000 islands by 2009, officials said Tuesday.


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