Residents inspect a house damaged by tsunami in Indonesia
At least 168 people were killed after a tsunami, triggered by undersea landslides from Anak Krakatau, hit the coast of Indonesia's Sunda Strait on Saturday. At least 30 others are unaccounted for.
Another 745 people were hurt and dozens of buildings were damaged on Saturday night, the National Disaster Management Agency said.
The Meteorology and Geophysics agency in a separate statement said it could have been caused by undersea landslides from Anak Krakatau, a volcanic island formed over years from the Krakatau volcano, which last erupted in October.
A villager walks past a car damaged by tsunami
Andersen, a Norwegian professional volcano photographer, said he had rushed to the hotel where his family were staying, and they later went to a higher ground in a forest.
“I had to run, as the wave passed the beach and landed 15-20m (meters) inland,” Oystein Lund Andersen wrote on Facebook. He said he was taking pictures of the volcano when he suddenly saw a big wave coming towards him.
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The Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Footage posted by the head of the disaster management agency showed the aftermath of flooded streets and an overturned car.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expressed his sympathy and ordered government agencies to respond quickly to the disaster.
“My deep condolences to the victims in Banten and Lumpung provinces,” he said. “Hopefully, those who are left have patience.”
The Anak Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait that links the Indian Ocean and Java Sea erupted about 24 minutes before the tsunami, the geophysics agency said.
A man inspects his house destroyed in tsunami
The 305-meter (1,000-foot) -high volcano, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) southwest of capital Jakarta, has been erupting since June. In July, authorities widened its no-go areas to 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) from the crater.
Gegar Prasetya, co-founder of the Tsunami Research Center Indonesia, said the waves were likely caused by a flank collapse — when a big section of a volcano’s slope gives way. He said it’s possible for an eruption to trigger a landslide above ground or beneath the ocean, both capable of producing a tsunami.
In September, more than 2,500 people were killed by a quake and tsunami that hit the city of Palu on the island of Sulawesi, which is just east of Borneo.
Saturday’s tsunami triggered memories for some of the massive 9.1-magnitude earthquake that hit on Dec. 26, 2004. It spawned a giant tsunami off Sumatra island in western Indonesia, killing more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries — the majority in Indonesia. The vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands home to 260 million people. Roads and infrastructure are poor in many areas, making access difficult in the best of conditions.
