Storms that bring trees down (and sometimes planes)

As a post script to our Jepara posting, we liked the place so much we stayed an extra night and what a night.

About 4am we were woken by a storm, wind like you've never heard (in a meteorological sense), thunder, lightening and serious rain, it lasted about an hour before it abated enough to fall back to sleep. At 5.45am we were woken by the sound of chainsaws. The storm had wreaked havoc, trees felled, the art gallery next door blown down, shrubs ripped out by the roots. Just scenes of devastation and seemingly completely targeted at the street we were staying on. It looked like a tornado had whipped down the street.

In the midst of it Adrian said "imagine what this would be like on a plane". It doesn't bear thinking about. A chap in our hotel from London (Indonesian wife) said they'd arrived the night of the storm that caused flight QZ8501 to perish and it had been similar. Our AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur is booked from Surabaya on 30th January, I'm praying for good weather!



With typical Indonesian stoicism, after 2 hours the road was open again, all the felled trees were chopped up and the power men entered. All wearing flipflops (as, incidentally, were the chainsaw operators). Ladders made of bamboo and serious climbing skills saw power cables reinstated. Not one risk assessment was written and no one died.