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| Monday, 27 December 2004 |
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Tsunami kills 483 in Indonesia JAKARTA, Sunday (Reuters) At least 483 people were killed by a tsunami that crashed into parts of Indonesia on Sunday in the wake of a powerful earthquake, Metro TV said. Most of the deaths were in the province of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island, said Metro, Indonesia's top television news channel. At least 55 people, many of them children, were killed when the tsunami swept the coast around the Bireuen regency in Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, a local mayor told Reuters. Bireuen lies near the coastal town of Lhokseumawe, which was also badly hit and where 53 people were killed, El Shinta radio said. Officials said at least 100 people had been injured there. "The weather was fine with no clouds, there was no warning and suddenly the sea water just hit the city. In some parts the water was up to chest level," Bustami, a resident in Lhokseumawe, told Reuters by telephone. "People are panicking now. Some of us are walking by foot and others are on military trucks going to higher ground." Sadli, an official at the Cut Meutia hospital in Lhokseumawe, told Metro TV that many of the dead in the city were children under the age of 10."Maybe they were being carried by their parents but they fell over in the water and could not hold on to their children. All the dead children drowned," said Sadli. Thousands of residents in Lhokseumawe had fled the town. Bireuen mayor Mustofa said hundreds of houses had been swept away by the force of five-metre (15-foot) waves. The official Antara news agency, quoting the governor of North Sumatra province, which lies directly south of Aceh, said 51 bodies had been recovered in the island of Nias and an area called Serdang Bedagai in the province. |
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