Children, who affected by the tsunami at Sunda Strait, collect snacks from a collapsed shop at Rajabasa in South Lampung, Indonesia, December 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer
SUMUR, Indonesia, The death toll from the tsunami that hit Indonesian islands without warning Saturday night has passed 420 with more than 1,400 people injured.
Thousands of people were left homeless when the waves smashed homes on coastal areas of western Java and southern Sumatra.
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had climbed to 429 on Tuesday and at least 128 were missing.
Military troops, government personnel and volunteers were searching along debris-strewn beaches. Where victims were found, body bags were laid out, and weeping relatives identified the dead.
The Christmas holiday was somber with prayers for tsunami victims in the Indonesian region hit by waves that struck without warning Saturday night.
Markus Taekz said the Rahmat Pentecostal Church in the hard-hit area of Carita did not celebrate with joyous music.
Instead, he said only about 100 people showed up for the Christmas Eve service, usually attended by double that number, because many people had left the area for the capital, Jakarta, or other areas away from the disaster zone.
Noting the disaster that killed hundreds, he said, "Our celebration is full of grief."
Indonesia is mostly Muslim with Christians, Hindus and other religions as well. Church leaders called on Christians to pray for victims of the tsunami.
Church leaders called on Christians across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, to pray for victims of the tsunami.
Military troops, government personnel and volunteers were searching along debris-strewn beaches. Where victims were found, yellow, orange and black body bags were laid out, and weeping relatives identified the dead. Chunks of broken concrete and splintered wood littered the coast where hundreds of homes and hotels had stood.
The waves followed an eruption and apparent landslide on Anak Krakatau, or "Child of Krakatoa," a volcanic island that formed in the early part of the 20th century near the site of the cataclysmic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and home to 260 million people, lies along the Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
The massive eruption of Krakatoa killed more than 30,000 people and hurled so much ash that it turned day to night in the area and reduced global temperatures. Thousands were believed killed by a quake and tsunami that hit Sulawesi island in September, and an earlier quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people in August.
