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.