Pancer, East Java

The village of Pancer was severely damaged by the tsunami. Pancer (pronounced pon-char) suffered the greatest loss of human life and the largest amount of structural damage of any East Java village impacted by the tsunami. The tsunami took the lives of 126 people in Pancer. The village was flattened to a distance of 150 meters from the shoreline, with 671 structures either partially or totally destroyed by the tsunami.

Built on a sand bar and fronted by a tidal flat, a small river runs behind Pancer, sandwiching it between the Indian Ocean and the river channel. The tsunami flooded the entire village and penetrated beyond the river channel. Survey team members estimated a maximum horizontal inundation distance from the shoreline of at least 750 meters. Runup above mean water level ranged from 5.7 to 9.4 meters.

This account has been adapted from Synolakis et al.

Runup Data

1994 Survey Images

1995 Survey Images

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