Gale kills one, damages houses in Makassar

Andi Hajramurni and ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Makassar/Surabaya

At least one person was killed and more than a dozen houses were damaged as a gale hit four villages in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar on Tuesday.

The gale also caused the two-meter high dividing wall on the Makassar toll road to collapse at around 7:30 a.m.

The dead victim, identified as Yusuf, 44, from Rappokalling village, died at the scene after being hit by the falling wall.

"It was raining in the morning. Suddenly a strong gale blew up. Galvanized roofing sheets went flying and the 30-meter-long wall collapsed," said Rahim, an eyewitness.

At the time Yusuf was on his way home after accompanying his stepchild to school on a bicycle. He had stopped near the wall to put on his raincoat.

The gale sprang up without warning and blew down the wall on top of Yusuf, a carpenter.

PT Bosowa Developer, which operates the toll road and erected the wall in 1994, said it had suffered a loss of around Rp 40 million (US$4,705) as a result of the wall's collapse.

Rappokalling village head Amir Maskur said that at least 14 houses in his village and Wala-walae village had been badly damaged, along with furniture, television sets and other household equipment.

Meanwhile in East Java, the Tanjung Perak office of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) warned that a storm would hit in a couple of days following the pounding of coastal areas in Manado, North Sulawesi, by the tail-end of Cyclone Debbie.

"The seeds of the storm have been detected and we will have to be careful as it might turn out to be bigger than Debbie," the head of the Tanjung Perak BMG office, Edy Waluyo, said.

Accordingly, he called on ships in the area to seek alternative courses or postpone their departures.