Indonesian tsunami kills at least 86
**Dozens more missing along west Java beaches **
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 24 minutes ago
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A 6-foot-high tsunami crashed into beach resorts and fishing villages along Indonesia’s Java island Monday, killing at least 86 people, leaving scores missing and sending thousands fleeing to higher ground in terror, a Red Cross official said.
Regional agencies issued bulletins that a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake was strong enough to send a killer wave toward the country worst hit by the 2004 tsunami, but they did not reach the victims because the island has no warning system.
Red Cross official Arifin Muhadi said at least 86 people were killed, most in Pangandaran, and that 77 others were missing.
“We are still evacuating areas and cross-checking data,” he said.
The temblor that spawned Monday’s tsunami was revised upward from magnitude 7.1 to 7.7, the U.S. Geological Survey said late Monday, and was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks.
**Thousands flee
**Thousands of people fled to higher ground along a 110-mile stretch of the densely populated island’s southern coast, some shouting “Tsunami! Tsunami!” and climbing trees or crowding into mosques to pray.
People ran up a hill to escape the wave on Pangandaran beach in west Java, a woman who identified herself only as Teti told el-Shinta radio station.
“All the houses are destroyed along the beach,” she said. “Small hotels are completely destroyed and at least one restaurant was washed away.”
The extent of damage from Monday’s wave was not immediately clear, police said, with roads blocked and power cut to much of the area.
Indonesia was the country that was hit worst by the 2004 tsunami and it has installed a warning system across much of Sumatra island, but not on Java, which just seven weeks ago was hit by a powerful quake that killed thousands.
Monday’s tsunami followed a quake that struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean 150 miles southwest of Java’s western coast at 3:24 p.m. local time, causing tall buildings to sway as far off as the capital Jakarta.
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed at least 216,000 people, nearly half of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
On May 27, a magnitude-5.9 earthquake devastated a large swath of Java Island, killing more than 5,800 people.
Australia’s Cocos and Christmas islands were also at risk, but tourism officials there said they had not felt the temblor and were unaware of a tsunami.
“I think we’re OK,” said Asma Jim of the Cocos Island Tourism Association. “It’s a very small island, and I didn’t even know there had been a quake.”
**Tsunami warning in India
**Meanwhile, India issued a tsunami warning for its Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are located near Indonesia, officials said.
“We have alerted all the people in the coastal areas but there is no evacuation yet,” deputy commissioner of Nicobar group of islands, Ankita Mishra, told Reuters from Car Nicobar island.
Another official, Vikas Anand, said that a warning had also been issued for the Andaman part of the archipelago in the Bay of Bengal.
Inna lillahee wa inna illahe rajiyoon
