JAKARTA: Funerals were held yesterday for several members of an Indonesian pop band killed when a tsunami slammed into a stage where they were performing an open-air concert.
Relatives of Muhammad Awal Purbani – bassist for the group Seventeen – sobbed and hugged each other at a service in Indonesia’s cultural capital Yogyakarta, including a three-year-old daughter and his wife who was several months pregnant.
The group’s road manager Oki Wijaya, guitarist Herman Sikumbang and crew member Rukmana Rustam were also buried yesterday in separate services in their hometowns.
Local media have reported that Wisnu Andi Darmawan, the band’s missing drummer, had been found dead Monday.
Seventeen’s frontman Riefian Fajarsyah – whose wife is still missing two days after the disaster – posted a picture of the band online and suggested that Darmawan had been killed.
That would leave Fajarsyah as the only surviving member of the group, which has released a half dozen albums and commands a large fan base in their native country.
“So long my beloved drummer Andi Seventeen, Allah loves you,” he wrote. “Be at peace my friend. Endless prayers for you, Bani (bassist) and Eman (guitarist).
“It’s been an honour and a pride to share a stage with you. We were not just work partners, we were family in life and death.”
A visibly distressed Fajarsyah told local broadcaster NET TV that was praying his wife would be found alive. – AFP
