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Indonesia starts massive tsunami clearup as toll revised down

by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) Jul 23, 2006
Indonesia Sunday started a massive operation to clear tsunami debris from the devastated south coast of Java island as officials revised the death toll down to 596.

The national disaster agency gave no reasons for lowering the toll by 65 from Saturday's figures.

It said the latest report showed that 439 people were killed in West Java province, 154 in Central Java and three in Yogyakarta, following Monday's disaster, which was triggered by a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake.

The agency said another 73 were still missing and that 9,533 people were injured. Another 74,100 people remain displaced, mainly around the sleepy tourist resort of Pangandaran which bore the brunt of the giant waves.

Around 3,000 soldiers, police, local officials and volunteers Sunday started a massive operation to clear rubble and debris from tsunami-devastated areas.

Officials said the cleanup was likely to last until early August.

"As a follow up of the presidential instruction... authorities have set a time limit of two weeks from Saturday for the cleaning up operations," a spokesman for the Ciamis district which includes Pangandaran, Wasdi bin Umri, told AFP.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, during a whirlwind visit to Pangandaran and Cilacap, ordered local authorities to speed up clearing the rubble and debris left by the receding waves.

Yudhoyono said the ruins and debris would otherwise continue to cause "psychological trauma" for the local population.

Wasdi said that before the presidential visit, there were already 983 soldiers involved in the clean up operation, assisted by heavy machinery.

"But more reinforcement have since arrived from the surrounding district, bringing the total number of soldiers involved in the clean up and search operations to over 1,000," he said.

He said nearly 1,000 police were deployed in Ciamis district to help search and clean up operations, while the local administration was fielding 300 personnel in addition to more than 600 volunteers.

Television reports showed masses of debris being burned as well and private citizens clearing up their destroyed homes and businesses in Pangandaran.

Wasdi said that one body was found Sunday morning in the Pamugaran area, just west of Pangandaran.

In neighbouring Cilacap district of Central Java, where 150 people killed, search efforts and cleaning operations were also continuing.

"We are mobilizing all our effective personnel, be that from the government, the armed forces, the military or volunteers, to clear up the coastline while at the same time searching for possible victims still buried under the sand or debris," said district spokesman Arismunandar.

Special camps set up for survivors in Ciamis and Cilacap remained packed with survivors, who still fear another tsunami.

"We are spreading the message from the meteorology office which says that the number of aftershocks have been continuously dwindling from Monday and that there was no more danger of tsunami," Arismunandar said.

The number of aftershocks had declined from 26 on the day of the tsunami to just one on Saturday, meteorology office official Bambang Suryo was quoted by the Detikcom online news service as saying.

Suryo also said that it was now safe for residents to return home and for fishermen to head back to sea.

The tsunami is just the latest in a string of natural disasters to hit Indonesia over the past two years. Some 168,000 Indonesians died in the December 2004 tsunami.

Less than two months ago Java was hit by a 6.3-magnitude quake that killed more than 5,800 people.

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Strong earthquake sparks fresh tsunami alert in Indonesia
Jakarta (AFP) Jul 23, 2006
A 6.6 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia's Sulawesi island sparked a tsunami alert and precautionary evacuations on Sunday, officials said.







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