MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tsunami kills 220 on Java

A tsunami crashed into beach resorts and fishing villages on Java island, killing at least 120 people, leaving scores missing and sending thousands climbing trees or fleeing to higher ground to escape.

More than 23,000 people have been displaced, an emergency official said.

As darkness fell at least 30 bodies were piled up at one clinic near the coast, including several children covered in white sheets, and thousands of terrified residents set up camp in the hills overlooking the sea.

Regional agencies issued bulletins yesterday saying a 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck 240 km off Indonesia's southern coast was strong enough to create a tsunami. But they did not reach victims on Java because a warning system is not yet in place.

The hardest-hit area appeared to be Pangandaran, an idyllic beach resort where 38 bodies have so far been recovered. The resort is popular with local and foreign tourists. People shouted "Tsunami! Tsunami!" as the more than two-metre-high wave approached some clinging to tree branches or crowding into inland mosques to pray.

Boats crashed to shore, some slamming into hotels, and houses and restaurants were flattened along a 180-km stretch of the densely populated island's southern coast.

Jan Boeken, from Antwerp, Belgium, said he was sitting at a bar when his waiter started screaming. "I looked back at the beach and saw a big wall of thundering black water coming toward us," said the 53-year-old, who escaped with minor cuts to the head and knees. "I ran, but I got trapped in the kitchen, I couldn't get out. I got hit in the body by debris and my lungs filled with water."

An emergency official said at least 121 people were killed and nearly 130 others unaccounted for, most in Pangandaran and nearby Cilacap.

Most of the victims were believed to be Indonesians, but at least one Swedish tourist was being treated for injuries at a hospital near Pangandaran and his two sons, 5 and 10, were missing, a Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

A witness told el-Shinta he saw the ocean withdraw 500 m from the beach a half-hour before the powerful wave smashed ashore, a typical phenomenon before a tsunami. "I could see fish jumping around on the ocean floor," Miswan said. "Later I saw a wave like a black wall".

Local media reports said the wave came as far 300 m inland in some places. Buildings sit close to the beach in Pangandaran.

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 300 feet inland, he said.

Java was hit seven weeks ago by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 5,800 people, but was spared by the 2004 tsunami that killed 216,000 people, nearly half of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.

The May earthquake did not affect the part of the island hit by yesterday's tsunami, which was spawned by a quake that struck 240 km beneath the Indian Ocean. The quake struck at 3:24pm, causing tall buildings to sway hundreds of kilometres away in the capital, Jakarta.