Indonesia tsunami death toll rises to 429 with nation consumed by grief over Christmas

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Jacob Jarvis25 December 2018

The death toll from the recent devastating tsunami which hit Indonesia has reached 429.

This comes as there are still more than 1,400 people injured and at least 128 missing after the tsunami slammed into parts of western Java and southern Sumatra islands.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia Disaster Mitigation Agency confirmed these figures and said more than 16,000 people were displaced by the disaster.

Some villages in certain areas have been cut off due to damaged roads and bridges, making it difficult to supply assistance to people who may be injured or trapped.

Indonesia tsunami December 2018

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Usually joyous Christmas celebrations across Indonesia have been replaced with sombre prayer in the wake of the tragedy.

Pastor Markus Taekz said his Rahmat Pentecostal Church in the hard-hit area of Carita did not celebrate with joyous songs this year.

Instead, just 100 people attended the Christmas Eve service, usually attended by double that number.

Saturday tsunami is thought to have been triggered by underwater landslides resulting from volcanic activity
AFP/Getty Images

Many members of the congregation had already left the area for the capital, Jakarta, or other locations away from the impact zone.

"This is an unusual situation because we have a very bad disaster that killed hundreds of our sisters and brothers in Banten," he said, referring to the province on Java island.

"So our celebration is full of grief."

AFP/Getty Images

Military troops alongside government personnel and volunteers have continued searching along debris-strewn beaches.

Yellow, orange and black body bags were laid out where victims were found while many searched for missing loved ones at hospital morgues.

The waves followed an eruption and apparent landslide on Anak Krakatau, or "Child of Krakatoa," a volcanic island.

This formed in the early part of the 20th century near the site of the cataclysmic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, following the disaster, vowed to have all tsunami-detection equipment replaced or repaired.

Indonesia is comprised of more than 17,000 islands and home to 260 million people and lies along the Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

Saturday's disaster came ahead of the anniversary of the massive Asian tsunami that hit on December 26, 2004 after a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island spawned huge waves.

A giant wall of water that ensued killed some 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.

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