Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 07:51:52 PST
From:         "Indonesia Publications/Task Force" <apakabar@IGC.APC.ORG>
Subject:      IN: Flores A Vast Cemetery

/* Written  6:54 am  Dec 14, 1992 by apakabar@igc.apc.org in igc:reg.indonesia
 */
/* ---------- "Flores A Vast Cemetery" ---------- */


    According to a December 14 Reuter story by Menuk Suwondo datelined
Maumere, a killer earthquake triggered treetop-high tidal waves that ripped
infants from their mothers' arms and turned parts of Indonesia's "Isle of
Flowers" into a cemetery, survivors said on Monday.
    At least 1,226 people are confirmed dead and hundreds are missing
after the quake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale, hit Flores
island in eastern Indonesia on Saturday.
    "The death toll will be much more," said Nonpas Ferdinandus, an
official of the local district administration. Officials said hundreds
of people were still missing on Flores and the small island of Babi.
    On Maumere's outskirts, survivors said tidal waves swamped their
fishing village three times and swept many of the hamlet's 2,000
residents away in a hot gush of water.
    "The second wave was as high as a coconut tree," fisherman Patamu,
30, said. "The waves were hot, like lava."
    Patamu, his wife and two children were swept out of their hut by the
waves and thrown onto a hill where he joined other survivors to put up
crude tents for cover.
    The hot waves of death took a 10-day-old girl named Marina out of
her mother's arms. Miraculously, she was pulled from the swirling waters
by a neighbour and restored to her mother.
    Others were not so lucky. Observers on an aircraft passing over Babi
island saw no signs of life among the fishing colonies ringing its
once-pristine, now-mud-fouled beaches.
    Dr Harmanus Man, head of Maumere's hospital, told Reuters he
believed 750 people had died on Babi alone.
    At least 1,000 people died in the Maumere area, just 30 km (19
miles) from the offshore epicentre of the earthquake.
    Johannes Uda, a teacher in a vocational school in Maumere, suddenly
felt his legs giving way under him about midday on Saturday.
    "I then saw everyone on the streets suddenly also going on their
knees. I then realised it was an earthquake."
    Stumps of walls, with iron girders sticking out, and roads with deep
cracks testify to the fury of the earthquake.
    Tents have been put up outside the hospital to treat patients afraid
of entering because of cracks in the walls.
    Lines are forming in the town at food distribution centres. Even
drinking water is scarce at these centres.
    Few cars are on the streets and people walk about in a daze, many
searching desperately for their families. "I don't even know if they are
alive," said a man pausing in his tearful search for his two children.
    Rescue teams who searched the island for victims on Monday feared an
epidemic among survivors. "We are badly in need of medicine, tents and
volunteer relief workers," said Herman Gadidjou, aide to East Nusa
Tenggara governor Hendrikus Fernandez.
    Fernandez said the tents and medicine were needed to protect people
from diseases like pneumonia, respiratory diseases and gastroenteritis,
with the onset of the rainy season.
    President Suharto ordered the navy on Monday to help in relief
operations. Troops and civilians are also expected to boost the ranks of
the rescue workers.
    The tragedy was the latest to hit the earthquake-prone region. A
series of tremors hit eastern Indonesia last year, killing at least 22
people and badly damaging property.
    The last major earthquake to hit the country was also in the east,
in Irian Jaya in 1989. The quake triggered landslides that killed 97
people.
    Until midday on Saturday, Flores was known mainly for its colourful
Roman Catholic religious festivals, its coral and its flowers.
    Now most of the flowers around Maumere have vanished. Only a few
purple bougainvillea poke up from the rubble and dark brown mud.



   According to a December 14 UPI story datelined Jakarta, the death toll
from a powerful earthquake  that shook eastern Indonesia over the weekend
was raised to more than 1, 500 Monday and was expected to go higher, while
authorities warned jittery survivors of possible aftershocks.
   Officials placed the death toll from Saturday's earthquake and
resulting tidal waves at 1,581, making it the worst earthquake disaster
suffered in Indonesia, an official said.
   "We are expecting reports on more casualties," said Jacobus Lai, an
official at the natural disaster office in Kupang, in the eastern
Indonesian provincial capital of Nusa Tenggara.
   Rab Sukamto, director of the government directorate of geological
development, called on people "to remain on alert," as strong
aftershocks remain a possibility.
   Sukamto said officials have been sent to Flores with equipment to
survey the source of the temblor and to detect the possibility of more
activity. He said 80 percent of Indonesia's islands north of Australia
are prone to earthquakes.
   Flores suffered the worst damage from the quake, Jacobus said with
some 1,516 dead and as many as 40,000 left homeless in the town of
Maumere.
   The precise number of deaths is sure to grow, officials said, adding
that rescue teams are searching for possible survivors and bodies of
victims in the rubble of what is left of Maumere.
   The quake, which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale, shook the
island of Flores shortly after noon Saturday, triggering a tidal wave
and causing the collapse of thousands of houses, shops and government
buildings.
   "More than 90 percent of buildings in Maumere were totally
destroyed," Jacobus said.
   Those left homeless on Maumere have been moved to shelters and were
living out of plastic tents. Rescue workers continued searching for more
victims under the debris of crushed buildings.
   The Babi and Panama Besar islands off the coast of Maumere were most
severely struck by the tidal waves, the official news agency Antara
said.
   Witnesses said that Babi was temporarily "sunk for a short period of
time and (the water) swept and flattened everything on the tiny island,"
one official said.
   Officials said about 2,000 people - more than half of the two
island's residents - are "strongly believed to have died, swept by the
tidal wave," while 200 from Babi are seeking refugee on Flores because
aftershocks continue rumbling on the tiny island.
   Reports reaching Jakarta said that the quake triggered an 82-foot
tidal wave and sent water as far as 1,000 feet inland, sweeping up
houses and other buildings in Maumere, Babi and Panama Besar.
   Landslides also occurred in several place on Flores, some 1,175 miles
east of Jakarta. The island had more than 1 million residents.
   The tidal wave also killed about 200 people in Wuring village near
Maumere, officials estimated.
   One survivor, Mohammad Salahu, said in Jakarta's Kompas newspaper
that he saw that about 50 bodies stuck on trees, adding that people on
Babi were in panic and didn't know where to run.
   "In the end we just surrendered to God," Salahu said.
   Officials in East Nusa Tenggara said that basic necessities remain a
problem for those left homeless.



    According to a December 14 Reuter story by Moses Manoharan datelined
Jakarta, a devastating earthquake which rocked eastern Indonesia on Saturday
killed at least 1,226 people and left over 1,000 missing when a 25-metre
(80-foot) freak wave swamped an island, Governor Hendrikus Fernandez told
state television.
    "We are badly in need of medicine, tents and volunteer relief
workers," Herman Gadidjou, aide to East Nusa Tenggara governor
Fernandez, told Reuters.
    Fernandez told state television on Sunday night that huge freak
waves raised by the earthquake swamped the island of Babi with 1,200
people. All were reported missing.
    The waves, one said to be as high as an eight-storey building, were
also reported to have drowned another 200 people in two fishing villages
near Maumere on the island of Flores.
    Rescue teams who searched the island for victims on Monday feared an
epidemic among survivors.
    Government officials appealed for medicine, food, tents and blankets
for the survivors of the quake that hit Flores on Saturday with an
intensity of 6.8 on the Richter scale.
    Fernandez said after a visit to Flores on Sunday that tents were
needed as much as medicine to give shelter to thousands of people who
fled their homes after the jolt brought down many buildings in the
worst-hit areas.
    He said the tents and medicine were needed to protect the people
from diseases like pneumonia, respiratory diseases and gastroenteritis
caused by the onset of the rainy season.
    Fernandez said more than 1,000 of the dead were in Maumere, where
the earthquake damaged nearly 40 per cent of the buildings and forced
many its 70,000 inhabitants to flee into fields and live under tents.
    Maumere is just 30 km (19 miles) from the earthquake's epicentre in
the sea.
    Tents have also been put up in the compounds of Maumere's hospital
for doctors and nurses to treat patients after cracks appeared in the
building following the earthquake.
    The situation was aggravated by the collapse of most of Maumere's
public utilities but newspapers reported a naval ship having reached
Maumere with emergency supplies including generators.
    Another ship with emergency supplies is also on its way to Flores.
    The earthquake disrupted communications with Maumere, causing three
bridges to collapse and landslides to block the main approach road.
    Flores, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, is a tourist
attraction famed for its coral and colourful religious festivals.
    It was not immediately known if any foreigners were among the
victims.
    The tragedy was the latest to hit the earthquake-prone region.
    A series of tremors hit eastern Indonesia last year, killing at
least 22 people and causing extensive damage to property.
    The last major earthquake to hit the country was also in the east,
in Irian Jaya in 1989. The quake, which measured 5.6 on the Richter
scale, triggered landslides that killed 97 people.
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