‘Ultimate no-notice event’: Indonesian tsunami strikes without warning, killing at least 281 people
Hundreds of people were killed after a Dec. 22 tsunami hit Indonesia. While the cause was unclear, experts said an underwater landslide may have triggered it.
JAKARTA — No one paid much notice when the Anak Krakatau volcano stirred.
It
has been rumbling for months, spewing columns of superheated ash and
ribbons of lava that hiss into the currents between Indonesia’s most
populated islands.
Beach parties were in full
swing under a full moon. Vacationers on Christmas holiday were having a
late meal at seaside restaurants on the western tip of the island of
Java.
Then — a little over 20 minutes after Anak
Krakatau’s latest eruption — the sea rose up without warning, possibly
triggered by an underwater landslide shaken loose by the volcanic
activity. A wall of water roared ashore, sweeping up everything in its
path: boats, tables, people.
A tragic year for
Indonesia added more deaths and misery. At least 281 people were counted
among the dead by Monday morning — with authorities predicting that the
number could rise as disaster teams fanned out in villages and coves
along the Sunda Strait, about 60 miles from Jakarta.
Indonesia’s
Disaster Management Agency, which announced the death toll, also said
more than 1,000 people were injured by the tsunami, which struck late
Saturday with deadly stealth from the waters between Java and Sumatra.
Indonesian
authorities are always on alert for tsunamis after any seismic activity
in one of the world’s most quake-prone regions. But this one caught
everyone off guard.
No tsunami alert was raised, and there wasn’t even a big temblor to get the warning system in motion.
The
initial speculation by experts, including Indonesia’s meteorology and
geophysics agency, was that an undersea landslide pushed the wall of
coffee-colored water that raced toward the shore.
Sutopo
Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the disaster agency, said an unusually
high tide because of the full moon compounded the surge.
“Data
collection is still ongoing. It’s likely that the number of victims and
damages will rise,” Nugroho said on Sunday, with the death toll then at
222.
By Monday morning, 57 people were still missing and search efforts expanded along the coast.
David
Applegate, associate director for natural hazards at the U.S.
Geological Survey, said in a telephone interview Sunday that the tsunami
was unusual because it was not among the 90 percent caused by an
earthquake. It was most likely caused by volcanic activity that led to a
submarine landslide and thus came by surprise, he said.
“This is probably the ultimate no-notice event,” he said.
While
it is clear that a large earthquake didn’t trigger the tsunami, a
definitive cause probably won’t be determined for a day or so, Applegate
said.
“The only question is whether it is related to volcanic activity,” he said.
The
tsunami hit with such surprise that the drummer of a local rock band,
Seventeen, was starting a song just seconds before the water slammed
into the back of the stage at a beach concert. The platform buckled. The
band members and their equipment pitched forward as the water swept
into the crowd.
At
least four people connected to the band were killed, Reuters reported.
One crew member, identified by Channel NewsAsia only as Zack, said he
survived by holding on to part of the collapsed stage.
“Underwater,
I could only pray ‘Jesus Christ, help!’,” Zack said of his struggle in
the water. “In the final seconds, I almost ran out of breath.”
The
waters ripped houses from foundations, and left cars and boats smashed
against palm trees. Thatched bamboo shacks were torn apart. Before
daybreak, disaster crews were gathering the dead and creating outdoor
morgues piled with orange body bags — scenes that have been repeated
many times this year in Indonesia.
Earthquakes
and tsunamis have destroyed hundreds of homes and killed and displaced
thousands of people this year across the vast archipelago: more than 500
killed on Lombok island in July and more than 2,500 dead in the Central
Sulawesi city of Palu in September.
In late October, a Lion Air passenger plane crashed after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people aboard.
Oystein
Lund Andersen, a Norwegian witness who was on a family trip to Anyer
Beach, wrote on Facebook that he saw the incoming wave.
“Next
wave entered the hotel area where I was staying and downed cars on the
road behind it. Managed to evacuate with my family to higher ground
through forest paths and villages, where we are taken care of by the
locals. Were unharmed, thankfully,” he wrote.
In
a statement, Indonesian President Joko Widodo sent his condolences to
those affected and said he had dispatched emergency responders.
Officials said heavy rescue equipment and emergency soup kitchens were
deployed.
At
the Vatican, Pope Francis prayed for Indonesians “struck by violent
natural calamities.” In Washington, a tweet by President Trump expressed
hope for “recovery and healing” amid “unthinkable devastation.”
The
disaster came just days before the 14th anniversary of the devastating
Indian Ocean quake and tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, that claimed more than
230,000 lives across the region — with Indonesia hit the hardest.
Igan
Sutawijaya, a volcano and geological disaster expert, said the early
evidence suggested that an undersea event caused the tsunami.
“My
suspicion is that there was a landslide under the sea. Perhaps a trench
crumbled,” he told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “It
doesn’t make sense that it was caused by the eruption of the Krakatau.”
The volcano’s name translates to “Child of Krakatau,”
a volcanic island formed in the 1920s after one of the largest, most
devastating eruptions in recorded history occurred at the Krakatau
volcano in 1883, which encircled the globe with ash clouds.
In July, the Anak Krakatau volcano put on one of its most violent displays, spewing “lava bombs” as big as trucks.
A report
on the website of the Global Volcanism Program, an arm of the
Smithsonian Institution, said Anak Krakatau produced ash plumes that
reached 200 and 300 feet on Dec. 14 and Dec. 18, respectively. It said
“residents were warned to remain outside the 2-km radius zone from the
crater.”
Gerry Shih in Beijing, Simon Denyer in Tokyo, and Brian Murphy and Michael Kranish in Washington contributed to this report.
