Waves Spawned by Quake Kill 171 Indonesia Villagers

Twenty- foot waves caused by a strong earthquake crashed ashore on sleeping coastal villages on Indonesia’s main island of Java early Friday. At least 171 people were killed.

More than 400 people were injured and 43 were reported missing, said a meteorological official, Johannes Tasar. At least 413 houses and 245 fishing boats were swallowed by the raging waters in eastern Java, he said.

The pre-dawn quake caused no casualties or heavy damage. But the seismic sea waves that followed about an hour later roared a third of a mile inland, sweeping away homes and the people sleeping inside.

Pesanngerahan, a poor fishing community, was hit hardest.

“It all started with the rising high tide--this is normal,” said Slamet, a fisherman who, like most Indonesians, uses only one name.

“Then the waters began to reach their homes, and before they could realize something was wrong, the looming, rising waters swept them away,” he said.

Joko, a teen-ager from the same village who managed to escape to high ground, said he watched the waters wash away his home and his neighbors’ homes. His baby sister was killed.

“My mother was calling for help,” he said. “Then I realized something was wrong. My father and mother did not have time to save my baby sister because the waters were suddenly rising very fast in our home.”

The tidal waves struck a scenically beautiful corner of Java, separated by a strait from the resort island of Bali.

A group of foreign tourists visiting from Bali for surfing and water-skiing narrowly escaped as a tidal wave missed their beach huts at Plengkung, police said.

It was not immediately clear whether the waves also hit the west coast of Bali. Most of the tourist resorts are in the south and north of the island.

Java is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago, an area that has been hit repeatedly by earthquakes.

In February, a quake on Sumatra, a major island northwest of Java, killed at least 217 people.

In December, 1992, an earthquake with a surface-wave magnitude of 7.5 killed at least 2,500 people and destroyed thousands of buildings on Flores island, 950 miles southeast of Jakarta.

Friday’s quake had a surface-wave magnitude of 7.2, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. Surface-wave magnitude is based on an analysis of seismic waves that travel along the Earth’s surface.

The quake was centered 18 miles beneath the Indian Ocean, 140 miles south of the eastern Java city of Malang and 577 miles southeast of Jakarta, officials said.