At least 20 dead in Indonesian tsunami

At least 20 people have been killed in a tsunami that hit beaches around Sunda Strait in Indonesia before dawn on Sunday, the government's Disaster Mitigation Agency says.

It said 165 other people had been injured.

Oystein Lund Andersen, an employee of the Norwegian embassy in Jakarta, was on holidays in Anyer, on the Javanese coast with his family when the wave hit.

''I was myself at the beach photographing the well known volcano – Anak-Krakatau, when I suddenly saw a big wave came,'' he wrote in a Facebook post. ''I had to run, as the wave passed the beach and landed 15-20m inland. Next wave entered the hotel area where i was staying and downed cars on the road behind it. Managed to evacuate with my family to higher ground trough forest paths and villages, where we are taken care of my the locals.

The Sunda Strait in Indonesia. 

''Authorities here are saying that this might in fact have been a tsunami caused by the activity of the volcanic eruption i was photographing.''

There was speculation the tsunami was caused by activity around Krakatoa, a volcanic island in the strait which is 156km west of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in the world, killing more than 36,000 people.

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