A Whooshing Sound of Death

At dinner time Friday, the earth shook. Ten minutes later, villagers along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea heard a whooshing noise. It was the sound of a tsunami, a 30-foot-high wall of water rushing in from the ocean in the earthquake’s aftermath.

The giant wave crashed over the coastline, carrying along thousands of villagers and their thatch-roofed homes and schools and an old German church. Two more waves swept clear a 20-mile stretch of the coast.

As the waves were sucked back into the sea, the reverse flow carried logs and debris that struck many of those who escaped drowning. The stilt-house villages of Malol, Arop, Otto, Warapu and Sissano Mission Station, where people had been surprised in the middle of their Friday dinner, are now barren strips of sand.

Of nearly 10,000 people who lived in the area, 704 have been confirmed dead, the disaster center in Port Moresby said. The body count is expected to reach “into the thousands,” said Maj. Michael Daniel of the Papua New Guinea Defense Force.

Augusta Uwom, whose younger brother was near the beach at the time and survived, said, “There was a loud sound, and the sea pulled right into the ocean. Where there was water became a dry place.

“The the seas rolled up, higher than the coconut trees, and broke down all the buildings,” said Uwom by telephone from the town of Aitape, near the center of the disaster. “An earthquake came again, and then another wave came and cleaned everything out. It took 10 or 20 minutes.”

Local businessman Robert Parer, who lives on the side of a hill near the ocean, said residents had little warning. “We only had about one minute, but some people had time to hop in their dugout canoes and paddle into the lagoon on the other side of the spit of land, which saved their lives.

“Some had enough time to run to higher ground,” Parer said from Aitape, about 540 miles northwest of the capital, Port Moresby. “But hundreds didn’t have time.”

Fisherman Jerry Apuan said Sunday that he couldn’t even count the number of bodies floating near one of the devastated villages.

“There were so many bodies together I had to move the boat slowly to pass through them,” he told Associated Press. “I was afraid. It was the first time I had seen so many bodies.”

Army flights over the area spotted bodies floating in Sissano Lagoon. More were trapped under trees in a mangrove swamp or buried in the sand, Daniel said, complicating the task of recovering bodies and of accounting for survivors. It will take days to determine how many ran to safety or were swept to sea.

“Some of the villagers have fled to higher ground and are afraid to come back, in case another wave comes,” said Daniel, one of the directors of the army’s rescue operations. “It was a terrifying experience for all who survived.”

The tsunami followed a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck about 12 miles off the island’s northwestern coast, the National Disaster Center reported. The quake created a wave swell that typically starts so small in deep water that it can roll under fishing boats virtually undetected but gains height and momentum as it races through shallower water.

Survivors of the giant waves filled the local hospital, and some victims were being transferred by small plane to hospitals and facilities at an army base in the nearby larger town of Wewak.

A Dutch doctor at a hospital in Aitape told Australian television that the beds were filled with people suffering multiple fractures, broken backs and internal bleeding after being struck by floating debris. Other victims crowded the floors and corridors.

Four helicopters airlifted injured or stranded people from the bush Sunday, while four Australian air force cargo planes brought food and medical supplies to the remote coastal area. Soldiers helped retrieve and bury bodies, and erected shelters for the thousands of villagers left shocked and homeless. Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, William Skate, arrived in Aitape on Sunday to survey the damage.

Nearly 500 victims were buried Sunday, and rescuers have almost run out of body bags, said Parer, who has one of the only working telephones left in Aitape and is helping coordinate rescue efforts.

With many of the bodies quickly deteriorating because of the tropical heat, bereaved families dug makeshift graves in the rubble of their homes. There were no coffins--the dead were simply covered with straw matting--and there was no time for traditional funeral rituals, which involve a night of wailing and mourning before burial.

“The dogs are starting to eat the bodies, and it’s really bad,” Sister Francoise at the Roman Catholic mission at Aitape told Reuters.

“The mission is focusing on the injured . . . but the dead are creating such a problem because it’s such a hot climate here,” she said.

A district government official said all schools in the area would be closed. “The schools will be closed because we do not have the children--they are all dead,” Dickson Dalle told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television in Aitape.

The next fear is a potential wave of disease, as people are crowded together without adequate water and lavatories.

“We’re expecting an epidemic of dysentery and diarrhea,” Daniel said. “We’re doing everything we can to prevent it.”

Papua New Guinea, less than 100 miles north of Australia, last had a tsunami in 1930 after a 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the area. Friday’s tsunami was the most serious disaster to strike the country since a volcanic eruption in 1950 killed about 2,000 people, the National Disaster Center said.

*

NO WARNING

Papua New Guinea’s tsunami was one of the most dangerous kinds. A10

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Killer Waves

Among the world’s most disastrous tsunamis:

*--*

Site Date Deaths Krakatoa, Indonesia Aug. 27, 1883 36,000 Japan 1707 up to 30,000 Sanriku, Japan June 15, 1896 27,000 Lisbon Nov. 1, 1755 10,000 Sanriku, Japan March, 1933 3,000 Papua New Guinea July 17, 1998 700 confirmed* Hilo, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands May 22, 1960 over 450 San Juan, Colombia Dec. 12, 1979 over 250 Okushiri Island, Japan July 12, 1993 190 Hawaii April 1, 1946 173

*--*

*Toll could reach into the thousands.

Source: The Great International Disaster Book by James Cornell

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Gigantic Waves

Many tsunamis come from far away, but the New Guinea one was generated only 12 miles from shore, allowing little warning.

HOW GREAT TSUNAMIS FORM AND MOVE

*

EARTHQUAKE

1. Large areas of sea floor elevate or subside, displacing a mass of water.

*

DEEP OCEAN

2. Waves rush away at a speed related to the depth of the water. (In deep waters and over long distances, a tsunami may only be 1-2 feet high but travel more than 500 mph.)

*

APPROACHING SHORE

3. The waves slow down and grow higher as water depth decreases.

*

IMPACT

The waves inundated coastal area in a way similar to a huge flash flood.

*

LOCALIZED NEW GUINEA TSUNAMI

Magnitude 7 quake 12 miles from shore

3rd wave: 30 ft. high

Sources: NASA; Researched by KENNETH REICH / Los Angeles Times