Fox News: “A tsunami struck Indonesia virtually without warning, killing at least 222 [now 373] people, sweeping away members of a pop band performing on a beach.”
Hundreds of homes and other buildings were “heavily damaged” when the tsunami set off by an eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano hit late Saturday around the Sunda Strait, Reuters reported.
Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate to higher ground, according to the news wire. Late Sunday afternoon the disaster agency had raised the death toll to 222, with 843 [now more than 1400] injured and 28 [now 128] missing.
The missing included one member of the band Seventeen, which was performing on stage at a beach resort on the western tip of the Indonesian island of Java when the giant wave hit, Sky News reported.
Video footage was posted on social media showing the stage lurching forward into the audience along with the band and its equipment.
The band’s singer Reifian Fajarsyah said Sunday on social media that his wife and the band’s drummer were missing. He also paid tribute to the band’s bass player and road manager who were killed.
“The tide rose to the surface and dragged all the people on site,” he said. “Unfortunately, when the current receded our members were unable to save themselves while some did not find a place to hold on.”
The timing of the tsunami three days before Christmas evoked memories of the Indian Ocean tsunami triggered by an earthquake on December 26 in 2004, when 226,000 people from 14 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia, were killed, Reuters reported.
“I had to run, as the wave passed the beach and landed 15-20m (meters, or 50-65 feet) inland,” Norwegian Oystein Lund Andersen said on Facebook. He was taking pictures of the volcano when he suddenly saw the water racing toward him. He and his family fled safely to higher ground.
The Anak Krakatau volcano lies in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands, linking the Indian Ocean and Java Sea. It erupted about 24 minutes before the tsunami, the geophysics agency said.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expressed his sympathy and ordered government agencies to respond quickly to the disaster.
“My deep condolences to the victims in Banten and Lumpung provinces,” he said. “Hopefully, those who are left have patience.”
Azki Kurniawan, 16, said he was undergoing vocational training with a group of 30 other students at Patra Comfort Hotel when people suddenly burst into the lobby yelling, “Sea water rising!”
With his eyes swollen and red from crying, he recalled being confused about what was happening because he did not feel a big earthquake, which usually serves as a warning before a tsunami strikes. He said he ran to the parking lot to try to reach his motorbike. But by the time he got there, it was already flooded.
“Suddenly a 1-meter (3.3-foot) wave hit me,” he said. “I was thrown into the fence of a building about 30 meters (100 feet) from the beach and held onto the fence as strong as I could, trying to resist the water, which felt like it would drag me back into the sea. I cried in fear … ‘This is a tsunami?’ I was afraid I would die.”
As night fell on Sunday, rescue efforts continued but workers and ambulances were finding it difficult to reach affected areas because some roads were blocked by debris from damaged houses, overturned cars and fallen trees, according to Reuters.
Reuters: The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said the wave was not caused by an earthquake, but was possibly the result of an eruption of Mount Krakatoa. The agency later explained that its early warning systems are mostly tied to tectonic activity, rather than volcanic.
The tsunami-like conditions were likely caused by undersea landslides resulting from volcanic activity at Krakatoa Volcano, according to the disaster agency. The volcano, also located in the Sunda Strait, has been spewing ash and periodically erupting for the past several months.
Krakatoa is the volcano responsible for one of history’s deadliest eruptions: in 1883 it caused over 36,000 deaths both directly and with the tsunami waves it triggered.
Prophetic Link:
“Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power.” The Great Controversy, page 589.