Embassies told no foreigners among victims of tidal wave
JAKARTA (JP): The American and Australian embassies in Jakarta yesterday received assurances that none of their citizens were killed by the tidal waves which swept across villages in southeast Java.
An official of the Banyuwangi regency, where the tidal waves claimed the lives of 202 people, said that there were no foreigners among the dead.
Wati, the official, recalled there were two Australians who were injured but she did not know whether they had now left the area or not.
John Milne, Public Affairs Chancellor of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, said that all Australians who were in the area at the time survived. "No deaths are reported and all surfers have been accounted for," he told The Jakarta Post.
He said the 19 Australians, 15 of whom were surfers on a G- Land surfing tour, were staying at Plengkung village at the time the tidal wave hit the area.
U.S. Embassy Press Attache Pamela Smith said she had not heard of any Americans found dead in the incident. "We don't think so...but we have sent some people to check out and they were told that no Americans died in the incident," she said.
The embassy has not received further information, she said.
An earlier report by the Kedaulatan Rakyat daily, quoted by this paper yesterday, suggested that 19 Americans and Australians from among 31 who were staying at Plengkung, had been missing since the tidal waves struck the area.
A Reuter dispatch from Canberra also quoted a foreign ministry official as saying that 15 Australians had been in the area but that they are all accounted for.
The surfers were part of a team sponsored by a clothing company that was filming a promotional video. One of them was Richard Marsh, a professional surfer ranked 16th in the world, who is back in Sydney.
The Antara news agency reported yesterday that the disaster has so far claimed the lives of 211 people in all of East Java with Banyuwangi the worst affected. Nineteen people were still unaccounted for, 2,228 were injured.
Search for the missing people is now focused on the coastline and the Marines have sent a unit to help with the effort.
Red Cross
Meanwhile, E.B. Anderson, an official from the Geneva-based Federation of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent yesterday visited the stricken area, accompanied by Chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) Soesanto Mangoensadjito.
PMI said in a statement that 60 personnel from its branches in Banyuwangi and Jember have already opened a public kitchen, a first-aid post and have evacuated and searched for victims.
Meanwhile, an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale jolted Lampung, a province in southern Sumatra, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, officials said.
Siswojo of the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency said the quake's epicenter was about 160 km southwest of Bandar Lampung in the Indian Ocean.
He said there were no reports of tidal waves after the tremor that occurred at around one o'clock in the morning.
The tidal waves in Banyuwangi last week followed an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale. (prs/pwn)