On this day October 19, 2001

An Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters, killing 353 of them.

On 18 October 2001, a small, unnamed 19.5m by 4m Indonesian fishing boat departed Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, with 421 passengers onboard. On the 19th, the boat sank during a storm in Indonesian waters about 70km south of Java.

Indonesian earthquake kills hundreds

Indonesian officials have said that at least 770 people have been killed and thousands more feared trapped under collapsed buildings, following a powerful earthquake on Wednesday.

The 7.6-magnitude quake struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and officials are trying to determine the extent of the damage.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble, and the Indonesian health ministry said it believes that the death toll could go into the thousands. Hundreds of people are believed seriously injured. As of 13.00 UTC, a disaster ministry official said that the official death toll was at 770, with 290 people being heavily wounded and a further 2,090 receiving light injuries.

Most of the deaths have been reported in the Sumatra city of Padang, where at least 500 buildings were toppled by the quake. A hospital, hotel, and school facilities were among the buildings destroyed in Padang, a coastal city of 900,000.

On this day September 30, 1965

On the night of 30 September six senior army generals were kidnapped and executed in Jakarta by a battalion of soldiers from the Presidential Guard. Backed by elements of the armed forces, the insurgents occupied Merdeka Square including the areas in front of the Presidential Palace, the national radio station, and telecommunications centre.

Suharto

At 7:10 a.m. a Lieutenant-Colonel Untung announced on radio that the “30 September Movement” had forestalled a coup by “power-mad generals”, and that it was “an internal army affair”.

Apart from Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Abdul Harris Nasution—who was targeted but escaped assassination and in was in hiding—Suharto was the most senior general not removed by the 30 September group.

Suharto had been in hospital that evening with his three-year old son Tommy who had a scalding injury. It was here that he spoke to Colonel Abdul Latief, the only key person in the ensuing events with whom he spoke that evening.

Indonesia’s most wanted militant killed

Noordin Mohammad Top, Indonesia’s most wanted Islamic militant, is killed in a police raid in Central Java.

Among four bodies recovered after the raid on a village house in Central Java, a decapitated corpse was identified as Noordin’s fingerprints taken from it matched those of Noordin that were obtained from Malaysia.

A similarity was found in at least 14 minutiae points. According to a police intelligence officer, the renter of the house, “Susilo”, Noordin’s close associate Bagus Budi Pranoto, alias “Urwah”, and suspected bomb-maker “Maruto” were killed in the raid, along with Noordin.

Indonesian flood kills dozens

A spokesman for the Indonesian government has said that at least 38 people were killed following flash flooding in the North Sumatra province on Tuesday.

North Sumatra in red

The flood, which began in the early morning, struck the Mandailing Natal Regency, 275 kilometres from the provincial capital, Medan.

The country’s health ministry crisis centre leader, Rustam Pakaya, said the floods began at 2:00 local time (UTC+7) and soon reached a depth of two metres. Pakaya said that rescue efforts were hampered by muddy roads.

Strong earthquake strikes Indonesia

The quake was felt as far away as Jakarta. Rescue efforts are underway to retrieve those trapped under landslides. It is Indonesia’s deadliest earthquake since 2006.

At least thirty-two people were initially killed by the quake. Buildings in Bandung and Tasikmalaya, the town closest to the epicenter, were damaged, and hundreds of people were injured.

An estimated 18,300 homes and offices were earlier thought to have been damaged. This figure later rose to 87,000+.

The quake was felt as far away as Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital; causing evacuation in many office buildings and hotels.

On this day August 27, 1883

Four enormous explosions from the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa generated tsunamis that destroyed many settlements on Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.

The explosions took place at 05:30, 06:44, 10:02, and 10:41 local time. The explosions were so violent that they were heard 3,500 km (2,200 mi) away in Perth, Western Australia and the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, 4,800 km (3,000 mi) away, where they were thought to be cannonfire from a nearby ship.

Each was accompanied by very large tsunamis, which are believed to have been over 30 meters (100 ft) high in places. A large area of the Sunda Strait and a number of places on the Sumatran coast were affected by pyroclastic flows from the volcano.

Earthquakes strike Sumatra, Indonesia

Four people have been injured after a series of earthquakes struck West Sumatra in Indonesia. They were wounded by falling masonry while fleeing Padang.

Sudirman Gani, head of the local administration’s politics and national unity division, stated that “the first quake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale was recorded at 2:48 p.m. It was followed by a 5.2-magnitude quake at 3:13 p.m., before the last one, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, hit 10 minutes later.”