Rumors Keep Javanese In Hills

Talk of New Tsunami Feeds Refugee Crisis

Photos
Tsunami Hits Southern Coast of Java
Six-foot tsunami waves triggered by an underwater earthquake swamped several resorts and village seafronts on the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java Monday.

PANGANDARAN, Indonesia, July 19 -- Panic raced through this beleaguered beachfront town Wednesday, carried by word of mouth and cellphone text messages: The sea is rising again! Another tsunami! Run!

Two days after a wall of water battered the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 531 people, hundreds of villagers fled Pangandaran as the rumors swirled. Scores crowded onto motorbikes, often three or four at a time, streaming into the surrounding hills. Motorists pulled over along winding roads after reaching higher ground, anxiously checking their cellphones for news and gesturing for travelers heading toward the town to stop.

The rumors proved to be unfounded. But they kept many of the people who had escaped Monday afternoon's tsunami from venturing down from hilltop camps to check on their abandoned homes.

Although emergency assistance is pouring into Pangandaran, relief workers said they were scrambling to keep up with the demand from refugees, including many whose houses were spared but who remain too shaken to return.

Indonesian officials said Wednesday that the tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake, had displaced more than 95,000 people along Java's southern coast. Most of them are in the hardest-hit district of Ciamis, which includes Pangandaran. But the officials estimated that only 700 houses had been destroyed in the district.

"Most of the people here have not lost their homes or their jobs," said Igun Gunawan, a volunteer helping to coordinate relief for 4,000 people who have taken refuge in two schools atop a lush hill. He estimated that only 35 families at his site require new houses. "The others are looking for temporary shelter because they're too traumatized to go down again, especially the females," he said.

Sumiati, a chatty woman of 45 in a red head scarf and blue floral gown, had been washing clothes at her seafront home Monday afternoon when she was startled by a roar. "I thought it was a jet airplane flying over," she said. "Then my neighbors yelled, 'Tsunami!' It was chaos."

Her family scurried into the hills, finally reaching one of the two schools perched amid palm groves high above glistening rice paddies. She and three dozen fellow villagers pitched camp in one of the small elementary school classrooms. They hauled the old wooden desks and chairs into the yard and spread thin, woven mats out on the floor.

By nightfall, Indonesian soldiers had set up a field kitchen on the hill and begun preparing vats of rice and noodles for the refugees, Sumiati recalled.

The school has only two bathrooms, leaving refugees increasingly concerned about hygiene. Sumiati, who uses only one name, said she had planned to return to her house Wednesday and take a bath for the first time in two days.

"Then my brother came and said, 'The seawater is rising again,' " she recalled with a sad smile. "I decided to postpone my bath until later on. Until then, I had thought the situation was returning to normal."

Such anxiety is widespread and has been compounded by the relentless rattling caused by aftershocks, some quite strong. Since Monday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, more than 50 tremors have struck Java, including one off the south coast Wednesday afternoon that measured 5.5.