Coastal Villages Draw the Ghouls: West Java

Always it has fascinated me the way that people can't help themselves checking out a situation that is bad. By that I mean being mesmerised by a disaster or a traffic accident. They have to go and see the mess.

I can recall one such situation several years ago in Yogyakarta during the rainy season. A motorbike rider had misjudged a bend and on the wet road surface went sliding down the road tearing bits off his body.

By the time I arrived at the scene hoping to assist in some way, there were all these ghoulish Indonesians just standing there staring at the blood and the poor guy's open wounds.

No one had called an ambulance or the police.

And the same thing is happening now at Pangandaran. It was the curious who came with their cameras to peer at a very different sight. What remained from Monday's tsunami. The once popular stretch of beach was now strewn with debris, the area usually crowded with families deserted except for onlookers whose villages were spared the pounding of the waves.

In a news source update it was Cipatujah along with Cimerak, Cimanuk, Legok Jawa, Cidadap and Bulak Benda that bore the brunt of the surging waves that descended on the south-western coastline.

Clumps of flotsam and jetsam litter the area, poignant reminders of lives washed away in a few moments of natural destruction. Toys can be seen at every turn, mattresses and other everyday items lie drying under the bright blue sky.

However unlike in easily accessible well-known Pangandaran where volunteers and aid quickly poured in these smaller communities have received little help. One or two ambulances have stopped by to patch the wounds of the injured and several vehicles bearing flags of political parties have passed by.

Ciparanti villagers in Cimerak regency said they only received a few blankets, three boxes of instant noodles, 100 kilograms of rice and several boxes of mineral water.

Fortunately, there were no fatalities in Ciparanti, an hour's drive to the west of Pangandaran, but 14 houses were damaged including 10 on the shoreline that were destroyed.

Residents remain traumatized by Monday's event and most are living in a few makeshift tents on a nearby hill. Some others are staying with relatives in neighbouring villages.