108 dead and 500 missing after tsunami hits Indonesia

At least 108 people were killed and more than 500 missing yesterday, including a group of Australian surfers, after a tsunami triggered by a powerful earthquake hit a remote Indonesian island chain, destroying villages in its path.

The 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck in the Mentawai Islands area west of Sumatra late on Monday, generating waves as high as three metres that swept away 10 villages, officials said.

One group of Australian tourists reported that their boat with 15 people aboard was destroyed by a “wall of white water” crashing into a bay after the undersea quake and said some had to cling to trees to survive.

Disaster Management Agency spokesman Agolo Suparto added: “Ten villages have been swept away by the tsunami.”

Also yesterday, Indonesia’s most volatile volcano began erupting again, sending plumes of hot ash and rocks high into the air, resulting so far in 13 people, in-cluding one baby being killed.

Thousands of residents living along the slopes of Mount Merapi in the south of the country were evacuated, hours after the mountain’s alert level was raised to the highest level.

Subandriyo, chief vulcanologist in the area, said that after hours of rumbling and groaning, the volcano started to erupt just before dusk. In 2006, an avalanche of blistering gases and rock fragments raced down the volcano and killed two people. A similar eruption in 1994 killed 60 people, and 1,300 people died in a 1930 blast.

Scientists have warned that pressure building beneath Merapi’s lava dome could trigger one of the most powerful blasts in years.

Most who have already fled were the elderly and children, while adults stayed to tend to homes and farms on the mountain’s fertile slopes.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and the archipelago is frequently struck by powerful earthquakes, including one of 7.6 magnitude in September last year in Padang that killed about 1,100 people.

The 2004 Asian tsunami – triggered by a 9.3-magnitude quake off Sumatra – killed at least 168,000 people in Indonesia alone.

Health Ministry Crisis Centre head Mudjiharto said the Mentawai waves reached up to three metres high and waters swept as far as 600 metres inland on South Pagai island, the hardest hit.

“Eighty per cent of buildings in Muntei village have been damaged by the waves and many people are missing there,” Mr Mudjiharto said.

He said medical personnel were on their way to the worst-hit areas in helicopters but rescue efforts have been hampered by disruption to communications in the region.