Gale kills one, damages houses in Makassar

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.