Financial Times

The tsunami that ripped through the south coast of Indonesia's West Java province landed a brutal blow on the economy of this popular beach resort, in a country where tourism has already been reeling from bombs, bird flu and earthquakes.

Monday's tsunami left the beach front at Pangandaran, formerly clustered with hotels and souvenir shops, looking like a war zone.

Fishing boats are now impaled on the smashed red-tile roofs of guest houses, while cars are tossed casually into lobbies of larger hotels.

Waan, a 34-year-old local surfer was on the beach when the wave struck and was swept 500 metres in land before pulling himself to safety on top of house,.

“All my life I never saw a wave like that in Pangandaran,” he said, grinning despite deep lacerations on his left leg and cuts on his head.

He shrugged when asked if the tourism sector in the town would recover. “I simply don't know.”

Waan said he had been forced to treat his own wounds by breaking into a shop for antiseptic and bandages, before relief efforts started coming into the town.

The weekend before the huge waves struck this town of almost 50,000 residents had been busy with visitors celebrating a traditional kite-flying festival and with families taking a last break before the end of school holidays.

The tsunami is said by the government to have killed at least 550 people in the resort and surrounding coastal areas, a fraction of the 170,000 dead or missing in Aceh Province after the devastating 2004 tsunami.

At least five foreign tourists died in the resort in the latest tsunami.

Lieke Remmelts, a 17-year-old Dutch woman whose hotel was demolished by the wave in front of her eyes, said that she and her family were cutting short their holiday.

They had planned to travel to Bali, which itself is recovering from two bomb attacks on tourist areas in past fours years.

“I want to go back home,” she said, adding the ocean now would just remind her of the traumatic events.

Indonesia's tourism industry suffered another blow in May when an earthquake in the historic city of Yogyakarta on Java island killed at least 5,000 people.

The country has also suffered bad publicity from 42 confirmed deaths from bird flu, tying Indonesia with Vietnam as the country with most human victims from the H5N1 avian flu strain.

“Maybe the government will give us help”, said 35-year-old Achmed, sitting in front of the wreck of the Argoloka guest house, where all 15 of its rooms were destroyed.