Java tsunami toll rises to 441

Tearful parents searched for missing children and soldiers dug through the debris Tuesday of homes flattened by the second tsunami to hit Indonesia in as many years.

Tearful parents searched for missing children and soldiers dug through the debris Tuesday of homes flattened by the second tsunami to hit Indonesia in as many years. At least 441 people were killed, officials said, with more than 600 injured.

Bodies covered in white sheets piled up at makeshift morgues8212;with the corpse of at least one woman lying on a beach long popular with local and foreign tourists.

8216;8216;I don8217;t mind losing any of my property, but please God return my son,8217;8217; said Basril, a villager, as he and his wife searched though mounds of rubble piled up at Pangandaran resort on Java island8217;s southern coast.

The area hit by Monday8217;s disaster was spared by the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami, and many residents said they did not even feel the 7.7-magnitude undersea quake that unleashed the two-metre-high wall of water.

But some recognised the danger when they saw the sea recede and fled to higher ground, screaming 8216;8216;Tsunami! Tsunami!8217;8217; A black wave shot to shore a half hour later, witnesses said, sending boats and cars crashing into resorts and fishing villages and flooding areas 300 metres inland.

The death toll rose to at least 441, Health Ministry official Nurvila Dewi said Tuesday, with another 136 missing.

8216;8216;We are still finding many bodies, many are stuck in the ruins of the houses,8217;8217; said local police chief Syamsuddin Janieb, who said at least 181 people were killed and 85 others were missing in the Pangandaran area alone.

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Most were Indonesians, but a Pakistani and Swede were among the dead, officials said, and a French tourist injured in the waves said her boyfriend was missing.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry denied earlier reports from its staff in nearby Bandung that three citizens were killed, although the media spoke to the wife of a dead Dutch man and saw his body and passport.

At least 23,000 people fled their homes, either because they were destroyed or in fear of another tsunami, so accounting for the missing could take time, other officials said Tuesday. Dewi of the Health Ministry said at least 601 people were injured in the tsunami.

IRWAN FIRDAUS