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Ternate (ANTARA News) - A strong wind which struck Ternate city and surroundings on Friday morning caused moderate and heavy damage to at least 50 houses in the Kalumata area, southern Ternate.

According to data received from Ternate city`s Natural Disaster Mitigation Board (Satkorlak) here on Friday, the strong wind also ruined hundreds of traders` semi-permanent stalls and toppled hundreds of trees and commercial billboards along a number of the city`s streets.

No casualties were immediately reported following the natural disaster. But two cars were heavily damaged by falling trees.

"The strong wind was also followed by heavy rain which lasted for about two hours," Burhan, a local resident, said.

The collapsed trees also caused damage to electricity wires and, as a result, the local state electricity company (PLN) had to cut off power for the entire city.

"Officials from PLN are still fixing the problem. Hopefully the work will be finished today," Saiful, m local PLN spokesman, said.

A staffer from the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Eko Widjayanto, said Friday`s strong wind had moved at a velocity of 35-40 knots. A similar phenomenon was expected to happen again next week.

Last November 26, a whirlwind destroyed hundreds of residents` houses in three villages of Kesamben and Wunut, Porong subdistrict and Kalisampurno of Tanggulangin subdistrict, East Java.

Sudarmaji of Wunut village said that some of the houses were flattened while some others had their roofs blown off by the whirlwind. "It happened so quickly. The whirlwind lasted for only about 15 minutes but the damage it caused is massive," he said.

He said that the whirlwind began at 4 pm and lasted for about 15 minutes during which it was able to blow down houses and blow off their roofs.

"Some of the houses were flattened while the walls of some others collapsed," he said adding it was drizzling before the whirlwind hit the villages all of a sudden.(*)

Editor: Ruslan Burhani
COPYRIGHT © 2012

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