Related News
Padang, West Sumatra (ANTARA News) - West Sumatra`s Governor Irwan Prayitno admitted that people in Mentawai island never received the tsunami warning from the related authorities shortly after the 7.2-magnitude quake struck the area last Monday (Oct 25) at 21.42.

Information from the National Disaster Mitigation Board (BNPB) through TV stations said that other software did not reach the local people due to their remote location and limitation of transportation and communication fatalities.

The governor also said the devices to detect a tsunami were not functioned at the time the big quake struck.

As a result, the governor said, not all people living in Mentawai`s coastal areas had been evacuated to safer place after the big quake struck and triggered a tsunami 15 minutes afterward.

The tsunami on Monday washed away 27 hamlets in Pagai island, Mentawai, with a hight of up to 12 meters. Six among the 27 hamlets were totally destroyed.

Up till Thursday (Oct 28) night, 370 people perished and 338 others gone missing in the tsunami. Related authorities also recorded 264 people heavily injured and 140 others slightly. The tsunami also damaged 486 houses.

The governor said that besides the hamlets totally razed by the tsunami, the remaining 50-60 percent had been seriously damaged by the disaster.

And the strong and high waves had even brought a great deal of coral reefs to the shore of the flattened hamlets, including Purou-Rougat which President SBY had also visited.

Most of the villages and houses in Mentawai are overlooking the open sea, although many of them are raisers of cacao, clove, and patchouli.

The governor said that most of the dead were recovered on land, and only a few of them floating in the sea.

He also said that the search for the missing will be continued in the days to come and God willing, the weather in Mentawai waters is favorable.

The members of the joint rescue team are still facing problems in the evacuation of the victims, especially sea transport.

However, the last two days the waters were not too rough, so that speed boats can reach the remote hamlets hit by the tital waves. (*)

Editor: Jafar M Sidik

COPYRIGHT © 2010

Comment
Send Comment