Nine year old Australian surfer survives tsunami in Java

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Nine year old Australian surfer survives tsunami in Java

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 24 July, 2006 : - - When the tsunami hit, nine-year-old Australian Dylan Ansori was surfing with his mates. The six-metre waves came without warning and in a rapid succession - like a "stampede of buffalos", by the terrifying account of his mother, Mary.

In seconds, Dylan was thrashed by the waves onto the beach on Java's south coast, but incredibly managed to hang on to metal railings on the beachfront. Once the water subsided, he climbed a cliff behind the beach, with dozens of other survivors.

For the next three hours, his mother did not know whether Dylan was dead or alive. She and her eight-month-old baby were forced to higher ground near the sleepy fishing village of Batu Keras, about 30 kilometres west of the surfing and fishing resort town of Pangandaran, also devastated by the tsunami.

"Luckily, he had some older boys with him looking out for him," Ms Gilleece said. Many were not so lucky. By last night, the official death toll was 337 from the tsunami, triggered when a magnitude 7.7 earthquake rocked the sea floor late on Sunday.

No official warning was issued - a tragic omission, in spite of earnest promises that an international warning system would be put in place quickly after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that devastated nearby Sumatra and parts of the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people, including 170,000 in Indonesia. Indonesian officials explained that a country-wide early warning system would not be in place until 2009.

Grahame Malligan, a former Sydneysider, picked through the rubble of his Bay Surf shop in Batu Keras yesterday. "We all felt the quake, but the first we knew of the tsunami was a roar. When we looked up we saw fishing boats sort of jumping in the air out in the bay."

He had been with his friends, Andrew Warmbrunn, from Melbourne, and Lyal Mackintosh, a board supplier formerly of Darwin. Mr Malligan said the three grabbed their wives and children and "headed for the hills".

Mr Warmbrunn said: "There were about six waves. The second was the biggest and the locals said it was as high as the point, I guess about four or five metres."

Mary Gilleece was also at Batu Keras. "I was just sitting on the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. I decided to go back to my house with baby, and then a few minutes later everyone was running, shouting, 'Big storm, big storm!' At first I thought it was a stampede of buffaloes," she said.

Ms Gilleece said she jumped in her car with her baby and tried to head back to the Lego Pari beach, where Dylan was surfing with friends. "But I couldn't get back to Lego Pari because it was flooded, and the road was blocked by debris," she said.

Instead, she was forced to drive to higher ground. Three hours later someone gave him a lift on a motorbike to the main town of Cijulang, where he was reunited with his mother.

Ms Gilleece, who has worked for 12 years as an English teacher in Bandung, West Java, spent Monday night staying in a villager's house above the beach. "Everyone was really panicking, saying this will be like Aceh."

It was not until yesterday morning that she could see her husband, Sofyan, who had almost drowned in the tsunami waves at Pangandaran. "I was sitting in the Bamboo cafe and then all of a sudden, we were swamped by water, and I almost drowned," he said. "I was hit by rocks."

He managed to climb onto the roof of the cafe, but from there could see children being swept away by the waves.

Wayne Proctor, a 46-year-old maths teacher at the Australian International School in Jakarta, said he and his wife were walking along a footpath in Pangandaran when they heard "this roar like a waterfall".

"Had we been inside the hotel, I'm sure we would have been dead because the waters that swept into our room were at least six feet [two metres] high."

Lyall Mackintosh, 60, said some French and an Australian surfers had been preparing to enter the water when the tsunami appeared on the horizon. "They all got the shock of their lives," he said.

Deadly Java Tsunami Caused by Slow-Moving Quake

Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
July 18, 2006

A large 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck offshore of the Indonesian island of Java (map of Indonesia) yesterday, killing more than 300 people and forcing thousands of others to flee.

The temblor struck at 3:19 p.m. local time, when many people were on the beach. It generated a tsunami reported to have produced waves from 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters)* high.

The waves were much smaller than the monster swells of the tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004, which left more than 200,000 dead across several Indian Ocean countries including Indonesia (Southeast Asia tsunami full coverage).

Puji Pujiono is the regional disaster response advisor for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"Rows of houses along the coast were swept away, [but] the waves did not go far inland," Pujiono told South Africa's Business Day news service.

"There was damage, not devastation."

Many Java residents recognized the danger and fled before the waves struck.

Nonetheless, the initially low casualty figures have steadily mounted into the hundreds.

Indonesia's tsunami warning system is still under development and is not scheduled to be operational on Java until 2007.

Comparing Quakes

The earthquake that created yesterday's tsunami bears similarities to the mammoth 9.3 magnitude temblor that sparked the 2004 disaster, experts say.

The primary similarity is that both quakes were caused by the collision of tectonic plates offshore of Indonesia.

At the site of yesterday's quake, the Australian plate is subducting, or being thrust beneath, Indonesia's Sunda plate at a rate of 2.3 inches (59 millimeters) a year, the U.S. Geological Survey reports on its Earthquake Hazards Program Web site.

The 2004 quake was caused by a similar collision between the Indian Ocean plate and the Sunda plate near the island of Sumatra.

But there are substantial differences between the two events, says Emile Okal, a geophysics professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

First of all, yesterday's earthquake was much smaller, which means it didn't do much to relieve the area's tectonic strain.

"It's not something that will set the area free [of quakes] for the next hundred years or so," Okal told National Geographic News.

Nor, he said, is the recent quake directly linked to the 2004 event.

That's because the 2004 temblor, he says, involved the movement of a plate attached to India.

"In this case we're talking about Australia. It's not exactly the same block." Furthermore, the plates collide at different angles at Sumatra than they do at Java.

"So yes, it's the same country" experiencing the quakes, Okal said. "But it doesn't mean that the conditions are a carbon copy."

Slow Zipper

Yesterday's Java earthquake, Okal said, is of a rare type known as a "tsunami earthquake."

That's not simply an earthquake that generates a tsunami. It's one that produces a surprisingly large tsunami for its magnitude.

Such earthquakes, Okal says, are characterized by relatively slow propagation of the earthquake along the fault.

Traditionally, the energy released during an earthquake moves along the fault at speeds of about two miles (three to three and a half kilometers) a second, like the steady opening of a giant zipper.

But in tsunami earthquakes, the ground unzips at half-speed or even slower.

This causes the Earth to shake slowly, producing relatively little damage to buildings but causing the sea to slosh more heavily, producing tsunamis.

The slow, low-frequency vibrations also fool seismologists into underreporting the temblor's initial magnitude, because the scientists are looking for conventional, fast-paced vibrations.

In this case, initial reports said that yesterday's 7.7 magnitude quake had a 7.2 magnitude. It might seem like a small difference, but it's a major distinction on the magnitude scale. For example, a magnitude 8 quake is ten times stronger than a magnitude 7.

Also, Okal notes, a similar quake struck the region in 1994 about 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from yesterday's event.

"That's geologically interesting," he said, "because we can legitimately ask whether there are areas that are prone to these slow earthquakes. The tentative answer, since yesterday, would be, Perhaps."

* Note the tsunamis were inititally reported to be only 2m in height.

7.2 Indian Ocean Quake Generates 6ft Tsunami

A powerfull 7.2 quake in the Indian Ocean shook Java today for over 2 minutes. Shortly after a 6ft tsunami smashed into Pangandaran on the central south coast sending boats and debris up to 500m inland according to first accounts. So far 3 people are reported dead as head high water destroyed beach side houses and small hotels in the resort town.

Other small towns on the south coast are thought to have been hit by the tsunami but reports have not been received at time of writing. The central south coast is heavily populated and many ports are located near river mouths on low lying or reclaimed land.

A 6.1 after shock struck 2 hours later and people are being evacutate from low beach front areas. Many people ran to high ground after the quake avoiding the wall of water by minutes.

Tsunami Ark Prototype Takes Shape

It may seem strange to be building based on the "tsunami ark" concept at 1,500m above sea level but there are good reasons for chosing Air Hangat as our test site. Bamboo grows on the organic farm property and we have access to free labor under the direction of our site manager. Transport and accommodation costs are minimal and the building will be seen by the stream of visiting authorites who visit the farm to learn about organic methods.

We have the full support of the recently promoted Head of Agriculture for West Sumatra. Pak John started the organic farm and his hard work has been recognised by the Governor and national leaders. An organic farm program is under discussion for the Mentawai Islands as part of our disaster mitigation strategy for the area.


The site for the protoype is among jungle trees on a ridge above a bend in a deep bamboo lined gorge. The building will be used for meetings and training programs at the farm.

Bamboo trusses are stacked ready for errection. The roof will be installed before the floor to protect the coconut timber planks from exposure to the weather. Our construction costs are being recorded and many details and techniques are being tried for use in the final design for our 'Ark' at Air Manis.

FootNote:

Europe's leading surf magazine, 'The Surfers Path' has published an interview "Turning the Tide" written by IA volunteer Mike Frood. The content is very similar to the Electric Lamb story and focuses on the history of our involvement in Sumatra and our work in Aceh and Nias.