Heartbroken singer weeps for bandmates swept away to their deaths when Indonesia tsunami hit them

Four members of a boy band were killed when they were hit by a tsunami while playing onstage in Indonesia in a devastating natural disaster which was caught on camera on Saturday evening.

Jaw dropping footage of the exact moment the 20ft wave came crashing down on the stage, engulfing the band, emerged on Sunday morning as it was revealed 220 are dead. 

A video which was being recorded in the seconds before the wave hit showed families enjoying a performance by Seventeen when suddenly the entire stage is smashed to pieces by the wave. 

The band’s lead singer Riefian ‘Ifan’ Fajarsyah told his 300,000 followers in a tearful video he was looking for the rest of the band.

The group later released a statement saying their bass player, guitarist and road manager were found dead, while two other band members and the wife of one of the performers remained missing. 

The singer Riefian ‘Ifan’ Fajarsyah who was wearing a Seventeen top cried as he told followers band members had been killed in the tsunami 

‘(We) lost Bani and our road manager Oki,’ the singer said. 

The dead were named as bassist M. Awal ‘Bani’ Purbani, road manager Oki Wijaya, guitarist Herman Sikumbang and crew member Ujang, the band said.

The band’s drummer is still missing. 

The band’s drummer is still missing, the lead singer has survived and the bassist has been killed, the band said

Seventeen were performing for 200 employees of state electricity utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) and family members had gathered at the Tanjung Lesung beach for an end-of-year party when the tsunami struck at about 9.30pm.

The wave hit beaches around the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra at about 9.30pm local time, destroying 430 houses, nine hotels and 10 ships. 

The deadly tsunami was triggered by an underwater landslide after the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano. The death toll stands at 168 while more than 700 people are injured.

‘Underwater I could only pray ‘Jesus Christ help!’,’ Zack, a crew member of the rock band Seventeen, said in an Instagram post describing how he struggled in the water.

Homes and businesses were swept away by the 16ft wave which crashed onto the beachfront on Saturday evening after a volcanic eruption 

Beach buildings were completely destroyed. A man is pictured on the sand but officials are warning people to stay away from the sea

NASA released an image of the smoking volcanic island taken from the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) on the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Sentinel-2

‘In the final seconds I almost ran out of breath,’ he said, adding he survived by clinging to part of the collapsed stage.

Survivors were treated at clinics but could not return to Jakarta because road access was blocked, Yulia Dian, a manager for the band in Jakarta, told Reuters by telephone.

‘We were shocked because a lot of the people who went there took their families,’ Dian said, noting the band had been due to return to Jakarta on Sunday.

‘They’d been sharing stories they were having fun at the beach and we didn’t expect this.’ 

Twenty-nine PLN workers and relatives were killed and 13 are missing.