Most of the houses were seriously damaged and two of them were flattened to the ground by the strong wind that moved very fast with spinning movements.
"Besides damaging the houses, the strong wind also brought down a number of trees and disrupted the electricity network serving many homes," said Sutinem, a local villager.
Sutinem said the whirlwind occurred all of a sudden and brought down trees and blew off roof tiles when it was raining heavily but no fatality was reported.
Meanwhile, Nglambangan village head Hadi Widodo said there was no fatality in the disaster but village officials were still taking data about the number of damaged houses.
"The village officials and the local community will cooperate to mend the damaged houses," Hadi said, adding that he had reported the damage to the Madiun district government to get humanitarian assistance.
Earlier on Saturday evening a similar whirlwind hit Lawua village in Sigi district, Central Sulawesi province and damaged several houses.
The strong wind happened at around 7 pm local time and lasted for around five minutes, Jenas, a resident of Kulawi Selatan, said in Palu on Sunday.
Six houses were seriously damaged as their roofs were blown away by the strong wind, but several others were slightly damaged. Most of the local people`s roofs were made of iron sheet, and the walls of wood.
There were no reports of casualties or injuries in the disaster. The material losses were expected to reach tens of millions of rupiahs.
Bora village, also in Sigi District, was earlier stricken by a whirlwind, which panicked local villagers but claimed no lives. (O001/A/HAJK)
(ANTARA)
Editor: Ella Syafputri
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
