Crew recount terror of tsunami that dumped ship in Indonesia village
258 views · Published 10 October 2018 · 2:38 · Indexed 25 September 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(5 Oct 2018) The crew of a ferry dropped by a tsunami in front of a row of houses in an Indonesian village say the waves that drove them onto land were a towering 15 metres (50 feet) or higher, and came minutes after an earthquake made the ship "bounce like a basketball". A week after the disasters hit central Sulawesi, the captain and 20 crew members of the Sabuk Nusantara remain on board, waiting for an assessment team to arrive and decide if the ship, its propeller jutting out over the waterfront, could be put back to sea. In interviews on the bridge of the red and yellow vessel, the crew members recounted minutes of chaos and sheer panic as the earthquake struck and a rapidly retreating tide - a sure sign a tsunami is coming - sucked the Sabuk Nusantara away from the pier. "It was just sudden," said the vessel's second-in-command, Jona Johanes. "We felt the ship was like a basketball being bounced" as the earthquake rocked the region, he added. The ferry, built in 2014 at a cost of 16 billion rupiah (around 1 million US dollars), was docked outside the village of Wani because the state-owned company that owns it was delivering it to a new owner. That was also serendipitous because there was no passengers on board the 63-metre-long (207 feet) vessel. The crew described what happened in the the terrifying minutes following the earthquake, which hit just after 1800 local time (1000 GMT) on 28 September. They had managed to don lifejackets and released all of the ship's mooring lines except one - the head line at the front of the ship - which was stretched incredibly tight as the tide rushed out, forcing the petty officer to drop it. "There is no doubt as a human being of course I'm panicking," he said, adding: "But we have to realise that this is a natural phenomenon. It's the will of God and we are chanting God is Great. But without forgetting our position, our duty." To the crew, the sudden drop in water level was bewildering and it seemed like the earth was rising. The time that elapsed between the tide retreating and the wave hitting was just a matter of minutes. At first the crew didn't realise they'd been dropped on land because the ship remained surrounded by water after being lifted and pushed forward by the surging sea. In retrospect, it was a "smooth" landing, and the ship appeared completely undamaged. The crew's account of the tsunami's height is greater than the highest estimates of disaster officials, who said the wave could've been six metres (20 feet) or higher, based on a man who survived by climbing a tree. A tsunami warning issued after the quake predicted waves of up to three metres (10 feet). Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/abf7ff674bfc102aec5cdf7b7a959423
