Six Indonesian students swept away by river tides killed

JAKARTA: At least six students in the Indonesian province of Yogyakarta were killed and five more were missing on Friday after a tidal surge swept them away during a school trip, said disaster mitigation officials.

About 250 high school students were walking along a river when high waters pulled them in, drowning them. “Students were doing scout activities around the Sempor river,” Agus Wibowo, spokesman at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said in a statement on Friday.

At least six were killed and six others sustained light injuries, he said. Biwara Yuswantana, the head of the Yogyakarta disaster mitigation agency, told Reuters that at least five students were still missing.

Wibowo said it was not raining when the students came down to the river but as they walked around it “huge waves came upstream”. He added that joint forces of the police, the search and rescue agency and the military had been dispatched to assist in search and rescue.