PADANG, Indonesia — Rescuers battled rough seas Tuesday to reach remote Indonesian islands pounded by a 10-foot (three-meter) tsunami that swept away homes, killing at least 113 people. Scores more were missing and information was only beginning to trickle in from the sparsely populated surfing destination, so casualties were expected to rise.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire — a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.
Many panicked residents fled to high ground and were too afraid to return home.
That could account in part for the more than 500 people still missing, said Hendri Dori, a local parliamentarian who was overseeing a fact-finding missing. "We're trying to stay hopeful," he said.
Hundreds of wooden and bamboo homes were washed away on the island of Pagai, with water flooding crops and roads up to 600 yards (meters) inland. In Muntei Baru, a village on Silabu island, 80 percent of the houses were badly damaged.
Those and other islets hit were part of the Mentawai island chain, a popular and laid-back surfing spot 175 miles (280 kilometers) from Sumatra.
A group of Australians said they were hanging out on the back deck of their chartered surfing vessel, anchored in a bay, when the temblor hit just before 10 p.m. It generated a wave that caused them to smash into a neighboring boat, and before they knew it, a fire was ripping through their cabin.
"We threw whatever we could that floated — surfboards, fenders — then we jumped into the water," Rick Hallet told Australia's Nine Network. "Fortunately, most of us had something to hold on to ... and we just washed in the wetlands, and scrambled up the highest trees that we could possibly find and sat up there for an hour and a half."
A tourist boat carrying 11 foreign surfers — eight Australians, one French, Brazilian and Italian — who were earlier reported missing in the disaster, arrived safely in Sikapap.
The disaster also caused damage to the Macaronis surfing resort on North Pagai Island.
On its official website, SurfAid International said the Macaronis resort had suffered extensive damage but that all people had been accounted for, while the capital of the Mentawai islands, Tuapejat, was unaffected.
Police on Mentawai Islands were searching for missing people and setting up emergency posts, said Ronald, a police officer in Sikakap district.
In December 2004, an earthquake off Sumatra with a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 226,000 people; the deadliest tsunami on record.
Before the 2004 tsunami, geologists warned the Mentawai Islands chain was also susceptible to massive quakes that could trigger tsunamis that could reach the provincial capital Padang.
Surfer’s paradise
• Mentawai Islands are known among surfers across the globe as the third-best place after Hawaii and Haiti for a number of good surfing locations blessed with a pristine and beautiful panorama.
• The best surfing locations can be found along the west coast of North Pagai, South Pagai, Sipora and Siberut — the four inhabited islands in the chain.
• A number of resorts have been built in various places, some of which are operated by foreigners, such as Macaronis Resort on North Pagai Island.
• Foreign tourists visit Mentawai throughout the year, especially from April to November, when the waves are huge, while novice surfers visit the island chain outside those months.
• Transportation is poor in Mentawai as the major means of transportation is by boat, which can take up to four hours to reach the respective villages from Tuapejat, especially when there are huge waves. The villages can be reached by boat from Padang, the provincial capital, in 10 hours.
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