Disaster spells freedom for 500 convicts

Disaster spells freedom for 500 convicts

Agencies, Jakarta

Hundreds of prisoners escaped from Indonesian and Sri Lankan jails when a tsunami triggered by a massive earthquake in Aceh province knocked down their walls on Sunday.

At least 204 inmates escaped from a prison in Pidie, Aceh, near the epicenter of the powerful quake, police said.

However, several of the prisoners later turned themselves in, Pidie Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ali Taruna Jaya said as quoted by Reuters.

Similarly, more than 300 prisoners escaped from a high- security jail in southern Sri Lanka after it was destroyed by tidal waves.

The prison in Matara, 160 kilometers south of the capital, Colombo, was battered by the waves and the inmates took advantage of the natural disaster to flee, a Sri Lankan police official said.

"About 300 inmates have escaped," the official was quoted by AFP as saying. "We don't know if there were any casualties at the prison after it was inundated by seawater."

The Matara prison is located within a 16th-century Dutch fort, which was several feet under water.

Meanwhile, thousands of Sri Lankans abandoned their flooded homes and fled to higher ground after the worst tsunami in their living memory swamped the island's southern and eastern parts, killing nearly 2,500 people.

Colombo said more than one million people, or around 5 percent of the Indian Ocean island's population, had been affected by the ensuing floods. The disaster came just a fortnight after severe monsoon flooding damaged crops and homes.