Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the wave, which hit the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java about 9:30 pm (1430 GMT) following the eruption of a volcano known as the “child” of the legendary Krakatoa, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Search and rescue teams were scouring rubble for survivors, with 168 confirmed dead, 745 people injured and 30 reported missing across three regions, he said.

Dramatic video posted on social media showed a wall of water suddenly crashing into an open-air concert by pop group “Seventeen” — hurling band members off the stage and then flooding into the audience.

In a tearful Instagram post, frontman Riefian Fajarsyah said the band’s bassist and road manager had been killed.

Images of the aftermath of the tsunami in coastal areas showed a trail of uprooted trees and debris strewn across beaches. A tangled mess of corrugated steel roofing, timber and rubble was dragged inland at Carita beach, a popular day-tripping spot on the west coast of Java.

Asep Perangkat, who fled Carita beach Saturday night, said he was with his family when the wave surged through the town, carving a path of destruction.

“Cars were dragged about 10 metres and so were containers,” Perangkat told AFP.

“Buildings on the edge of the beach were destroyed, trees and electric poles fell to the ground.

“All the residents that are safe ran to the forest,” he said.

In Lampung province, on the other side of the strait, Lutfi Al Rasyid said he fled the beach in Kalianda city in fear for his life.

“I could not start my motorbike so I left it and I ran… I just prayed and ran as far as I could,” the 23-year-old told AFP.

Dozens of ambulance cars have been deployed to Tanjung Lesung, Panimbang, in Pandeglang regency, Banten by the local administration and the private sector.

“Volunteers have reached Tanjung Lesung for search and rescue,” Edi, 40, a resident of Tanjung Lesung, who is also a survivor of the tsunami told Antara news agency on Sunday.

Edi said the tsunami lasted for 10 minutes. He was carried by the waves until the tide died down, and was left with injuries.

Some of the tsunami survivors have been brought to Panimbang community health center (Puskesmas) in Pandeglang regency, Banten, which has recorded a death toll of 10 so far.

The center has seen 63 patients with injuries such as broken bones, bruises as well as breathing difficulties caused by consuming too much sea water.

“All 10 people who died were tourists in Tanjung Lesung,” Iwan, a staff member at the health center told Antara news agency.

On the other side of the Sunda Strait in Bandarlampung, survivors took shelter at the Lampung governor’s office.

Since Sunday morning, residents have been going to the office, many bringing clothes and beds.

Lampung regional secretary Hamartono Ahadis asked residents to stay alert.

“Don’t easily trust information saying there will be a tsunami in the city. However, residents should remain vigilant and be careful should the high waves come again,” he said as quoted by Antara.

At least seven people died and 89 were injured after tidal waves hit South Lampung on Saturday at around 10:00 p.m.

Head of the Lampung Disaster Mitigation Agency, I Ketut Sukerta, said there were four severely affected districts in South Lampung, including Kalianda, Rajabasa, Sidomulyo and Katibung.

He said search and rescue had been underway since last night and would be focused on the four districts.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the latest death toll as of Sunday at 1 p.m. was 168 people, with 750 injured and 35 reported missing. Hundreds of houses and buildings have been damaged, and heavy equipment has been deployed for recovery efforts.

Data from the Banten Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) received by The Jakarta Postreveals that a total of five beaches in Banten’s Pandeglang regency were affected by the disaster, namely Tanjung Lesung, Sumur, Teluk Lada, Panimbang and Carita. The Banten BPBD said at least 43 houses and 10 hotels were severely damaged. (ars/evi)

Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the wave, which hit the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java about 9.30 pm (1430 GMT) following the eruption of a volcano known as the “child” of the legendary Krakatoa, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Search and rescue teams were scouring rubble for survivors, with at least 584 people injured and twenty reported missing across three regions.

Images broadcast on television showed the wave pushed a tangled mess of corrugated steel roofing, timber, rubble and flotsam inland from the coast at Carita beach, a popular day-tripping spot on the west coast of Java.

Elsewhere it uprooted trees and left a trail of debris strewn across the ground.

Muhammad Bintang, who was at Carita beach when the wave hit, described a sudden surge of water that plunged the tourist spot into darkness.

“We arrived at 9pm for our holiday and suddenly the water came — it went dark, the electricity is off,” the 15-year-old told AFP.

“It’s messy outside and we still cannot access the road.”

In Lampung province, on the other side of the strait, Lutfi Al Rasyid said he fled the beach in Kalianda city in fear for his life.

“I could not start my motorbike so I left it and I ran… I just prayed and ran as far as I could,” the 23-year-old told AFP.

– Initial error –

Authorities say the tsunami may have been triggered by an abnormal tidal surge due to a new moon and an underwater landslide following the eruption of Anak Krakatoa, which forms a small island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

“The combination caused a sudden tsunami that hit the coast,” Nugroho said, but added that Indonesia’s geological agency was working to ascertain exactly how it happened.

He added that the death toll would likely increase.

Video footage posted to social media by Nugroho showed panicked residents clutching flashlights and fleeing for higher ground.

Indonesian authorities initially claimed the wave was not a tsunami, but instead a tidal surge and urged the public not to panic.

Nugroho later apologised for the mistake on Twitter, saying because there was no earthquake it had been difficult to ascertain the cause of the incident early on.

“If there is an initial error we’re sorry,” he wrote.

The wave swamped parts of the coast around the Sunda Strait, but was most damaging in Pandeglang district, on Java’s western tip, where at least 33 people died and 491 people were injured.

Three people died further north in Serang, while seven were killed in South Lampung, on Sumatra island.

Heavy equipment was being transported to badly-hit areas to help search for victims, Nugroho said, adding evacuation posts and public kitchens were being set up for evacuees.

Abu Salim, a member of the Tagana disaster volunteer group, said he helped evacuate victims in Banten province.

“We evacuated the victims who died and were injured, we took them to health clinics … Most of them suffered from broken bones,” he said, adding he feared more were missing.

Although relatively rare, submarine volcanic eruptions can cause tsunamis due to the sudden displacement of water or slope failure, according to the International Tsunami Information Centre.

Anak Krakatoa is a small volcanic island that emerged from the ocean half a century after Krakatoa’s deadly 1883 eruption which killed more than 36,000 people.

According to Indonesia’s geological agency, Anak Krakatoa had been showing signs of heightened activity for days, spewing plumes of ash thousands of metres into the air.

The volcano erupted again just after 9pm on Saturday, the agency said.

An eruption just before 4pm on Saturday lasted around 13 minutes and sent plumes of ash soaring hundreds of meters into the sky.

Indonesia, one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth, straddles the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, where tectonic plates collide and a large portion of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

Most recently in the city of Palu on Sulawesi island a quake and tsunami killed thousands of people.

In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.

Anak Krakatoa is one of 127 active volcanoes which run the length of the archipelago.

The band confirmed via a press release that bassist M. Awal Purbani, also known as Bani, and road manager Oki Wijaya passed away following the disaster.

Seventeen was performing at an event held by state electricity company PLN when the tsunami hit the stage where the band was performing, located on the shore of Tanjung Lesung beach, at 09:30 pm.

The band is still looking for four people in their team, including Herman Sikumbang (guitarist), Andi Windu Darmawan (drummer), Ujang (crew member), and Dylan Sahara (wife of vocalist Ifan).

According to the statement, they had been evacuated to nearby clinics, and a search and rescue team had been deployed to the area. The band is unable to go anywhere due to the lack of transportation.

Frontman Ifan uploaded a video to his Instagram account, confirming in tears that several band members and his wife had not yet been found and asking for prayers from his followers.

The western territory is a tinderbox of ethnic and religious divisions and security forces have clashed with both Rohingya insurgents and much better armed Rakhine fighters from the mostly Buddhist Arakan Army.

Private Aung Kyaw Thet went missing in action after an ambush last week by unknown assailants in Maungdaw township near the border with Bangladesh.

His body was found two days ago with “gunshot wounds in his face, arm and leg near a hill inside the other country,” according to government-backed Global New Light of Myanmar.

The ambush happened the same day that two ethnic Rakhine Buddhist men disappeared while fishing in the same township and were later found with their throats slit, prompting the army to launch local “clearance operations” and raising fears of renewed large-scale violence.

Sunday’s report in Global New Light did not identify the alleged perpetrators of the shooting but said authorities found foxholes near the scene, bullet casings and biscuits manufactured in Bangladesh.

More than 720,000 Rohingya fled northern Rakhine to Bangladesh after Myanmar launched a crackdown on the Muslim minority in August 2017.

UN investigators want senior Myanmar generals to be prosecuted for genocide but the army says it was responding to attacks on border guard posts by Rohingya insurgents that killed around a dozen security forces.

The army this week called a rare ceasefire against ethnic armed groups in the northeast of the country but Rakhine state was not included.

Analysts say the military left Rakhine out because it does not want the Arakan Army to gain a foothold in the state as well as lingering concern over the less powerful Rohingya militants, who call themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The 60-year-old musician has been waging an eight-year battle to banish the vast forest’s morbid reputation by reaching out to those who come to end their lives.

But now he fears his work is being undone. The forest, known as Aokigahara, made global headlines last year when YouTube star Logan Paul filmed an episode of his online series there, showing a suicide victim at the site.

The footage sparked outrage and infuriated Watanabe, who was born nearby and has spent most of his life in and around the forest.

“It’s a forest of nature. It’s a forest of religion. It’s not that kind of place,” he said.”Do people want to make this forest a hell?” he said, calling it “so painful” to see the woods depicted in such a grim fashion.

Watanabe now lives in a hut on the edge of Aokigahara, which means “a field of blue trees”.

As night falls, he flips on speakers outside his secluded home and blasts rock and hip-hop into the darkness, breaking the thick silence of the ocean of trees.

He believes music is a way to reach people engulfed in inner turmoil, and describes seeing people turn around and leave the forest when they hear the blasting tunes.

Sometimes he plays guitar and sings his favourite songs into a microphone to break the silence.

He has even intervened directly, convincing one man who had travelled from the western city of Osaka to go home.

“He returned home, and he still sends me messages on Facebook,” he said.

– Highest suicide rate in the G7 –

Aokigahara’s long history dates back to the middle of the ninth century, when Mount Fuji erupted and lava covered wide areas that have since transformed into a 30 square-kilometre (12 square-mile) forest.

Local people have long worshipped the woods and its surroundings as a sacred place that reputedly enshrines a dragon.

It is a foreboding place, thickly planted with tall trees that block out the sun, and carpeted with moss and gnarled roots.

That led in the 1970s to it being increasingly depicted in popular novels, movies and television dramas as the fictional setting for suicides.

The association eventually became strong enough that suicidal people began travelling to the forest to die. Authorities no longer give official figures for suicides in the forest, but at one time dozens of people were dying there each year.

A sign at the entrance reads: “Life is a precious thing given by your parents. Think again calmly about your parents, siblings and children. Do not worry alone. First talk to us” and gives a hotline number to call.

Japan has the highest suicide rate of any Group of Seven industrialised nation, with more than 20,000 people taking their own lives annually.

And the suicide rate in Yamanashi prefecture, where the forest is located, was the worst in Japan for eight years until 2014.

Nearly half of those who killed themselves in the region were from elsewhere, suggesting they had expressly travelled to the area to commit suicide.

In recent years, local residents say, the number of victims appeared to be on the decline, with some hoping the forest might finally shed its malign image.

But that hope was shattered when Paul uploaded his controversial film showing the body of a man who had committed suicide. The video attracted six million views before it was deleted. He has since apologised for the film.

– ‘It’s my duty’ –

“The first wave of notoriety was created by mass media decades ago and now we are facing a second wave created by social media,” Watanabe said.

“Now that it’s recognised globally, people are coming from all over the world… to see something unusual.”

Paul’s footage was not the only factor — a steady stream of sometimes sensationalist news reports, and a 2015 film about two men coming to the forest to kill themselves — have cemented the place’s morbid reputation in recent years.

But Watanabe said Paul’s film appeared to have attracted visitors seeking the macabre. “Some foreign visitors have even asked me where they can see dead men.”

Despite its reputation, the forest does still attract regular sightseers.

Lisa Bishop, a 33-year-old tourist from Canada, said she was there “to come and see from our perspective what exactly we feel when we walk in here.”

She rejected footage like Paul’s: “It’s absolutely wrong. It’s people’s privacy.” Watanabe knows he faces an uphill struggle, but says he is committed to his campaign.

“Because I was born here, I have to protect this place,” he says. “I’m a gatekeeper. I feel it’s like my duty.”