Geologists warned on Tuesday that simmering Mount Merapi volcano could blow its top in the wake of the powerful quake that devastated swathes of Indonesia’s main island of Java. "There is a very large possibility that tectonic activities trigger or increase volcanic activities," said Syamsulrizal, who works at Indonesia’s national vulcanology office.
Grieving quake survivors scavenged for food in the debris of their houses on Sunday and pleaded for aid, as the world promised to help Indonesia recover from the latest in a string of deadly natural disasters. By nightfall, the death toll from the magnitude 6,3 quake had reached more than 4Â 300 people, officials said.
Rescue workers on Sunday searched frantically for survivors from the earthquake in central Indonesia that killed more than 3Â 300 people and left 200Â 000 homeless. A day after the earthquake rocked Java, grieving relatives buried their dead, hospitals overflowed with bloodied and bruised casualties, and aid workers rushed in food and medical supplies.
A powerful earthquake in Indonesia killed more than 3 000 people on Saturday, reducing whole villages to rubble in the nation’s worst catastrophe since the 2004 Asian tsunami. Countless victims were buried alive when the 6,2 magnitude quake struck at dawn, turning houses into tombs of stone and setting off panic in a country that has been plagued by natural disasters.
A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia’s main island of Java on Saturday, killing at least 3 000 people, injuring thousands more and causing mass destruction. Many could not escape in time and were buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings or struck by flying rocks and debris as the temblor devastated towns and villages cities across the south of the island.
A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Central Java province early on Saturday, flattening buildings and killing at least 309 people, hospitals and officials said. Scores of other people were injured. The 6,2-magnitude quake also triggered heightened activity in the region’s deadly Mount Merapi volcano, which has been spewing out clouds of hot ash, gas and lava.
Limited human-to-human transmission of bird flu may have occurred in an Indonesian family that lost seven members to the virus, but there was no evidence it had mutated into an easily transmissible form, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
Indonesia’s Mount Merapi appeared calm again on Thursday as hundreds of evacuees drifted back home, unconvinced they were in danger from the simmering volcano. But scientists warned that despite an apparent slowdown in the growth of a magma-filled dome at its peak, the volcano remained temperamental.
Clouds of searing heat belched out of an Indonesian volcano early on Wednesday as scientists anxiously waited for a feared eruption that has forced thousands of villagers from their homes. Despite apparently reduced activity at Mount Merapi, which produced major clouds of gas and ash on Monday, experts warned that the volcano remained highly dangerous.
A strong earthquake measuring 6,8 on the Richter scale struck near Indonesia’s Nias Island late on Tuesday, seismologists said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The underwater quake hit at 10.28pm local time at a depth of 1,9km, some 270km south-west of Sibolga on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the United States Geological Survey said.
More than 22 000 people have been evacuated from the slopes of Indonesia’s smoke-belching Mount Merapi, but the volcano appeared to have temporarily calmed down early on Tuesday. Clear weather after dawn showed a relatively peaceful Merapi, with thin smoke streaming out of its peak and none of Monday’s impressive heat cloud torrents.
As Mount Merapi starts to spew deadly heat clouds down its flank, fear is beginning to grip residents living in the shadow of the rumbling volcano. The appearance of the ”shaggy goats”, as the locals call the searing clouds of volcanic gases, ash and dust, brings back terrible memories of Merapi’s last eruption in November 1994.
Deadly heat clouds tumbled further down the slopes of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi early on Monday as the volcano’s activity increased ahead of a feared eruption, an official said. Blazing lava has also been oozing down the slopes of Merapi, but many villagers have been defying orders for a mandatory evacuation and are insisting on staying in their homes.
A strong earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia’s tsunami-deva ed province of Aceh on Saturday causing residents to flee their homes, an official said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The undersea quake hit at 10.30am local time.
Thousands of villagers began fleeing their homes in the path of red-hot lava flows oozing from Indonesia’s Mount Merapi on Saturday as officials said an eruption looked imminent. But many residents were still reluctant to leave their homes, despite a mandatory evacuation order, they said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that Israel ”one day will vanish” as he ramped up his anti-Western rhetoric in a speech to university students in Jakarta. The Iranian president declared last October that the Jewish state should be ”wiped off the map”.
A strong offshore earthquake registering 5,4 on the Richter scale hit the eastern coast of central Sumatra on Monday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the meteorology office said. The earthquake, which hit at 4.16pm local time, was centred 46km under the floor of the Indian Ocean, some 129km south-west of Bengkulu city, agency official Hardiatno said in Jakarta.
Authorities in Indonesia’s densely populated Central Java province said on Sunday surface tremors and multifaced quakes continue on Mount Merapi — one of the world’s most active volcanoes — and warned that a major eruption could take place in a few days.
An eight-year-old Indonesian girl who died last year has been confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the nation’s 24th bird-flu fatality, a health ministry official said on Tuesday. Runizar Rusin, the head of the ministry’s bird-flu command post, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that samples taken from the girl were only recently sent to Hong Kong for testing.
Greenpeace on Wednesday called on the leaders of Indonesia and Britain to adopt laws to help halt the destruction of Indonesia’s last ancient forests, ahead of the arrival of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a one-day visit. The environmental watchdog said the forests, part of the so-called Paradise Forests of the Asia-Pacific, were disappearing faster than any others on Earth.
At deserted Sorake Beach on Indonesia’s earthquake-devastated island of Nias, a few local surfers paddle out at sea, looking back at a bay blighted by desolate, half-ruined buildings. After an 8,7-magnitude quake shook the island a year ago, killing more than 850 people, they are the only sign that Lagundri Bay was once a thriving destination for international surfers.
Hundreds of people have attacked and torched a mining camp run by a local subsidiary of United States giant Newmont on Indonesia’s Sumbawa island, a company spokesperson said on Monday. The attack on Sunday followed in the wake of deadly clashes in Indonesia’s Papua province last week during protests to demand the closure of a gold and copper mine run by US firm Freeport-McMoRan.
A four-year-old boy who died in Indonesia is the sixth suspected fatal victim of bird flu in the last week, health workers said on Tuesday. The boy died on Monday at Sayidiman Hospital at Magetan, in East Java, less than 10 minutes after arriving, Sudarsih, a nurse, told Agence France-Presse.
Standing astride a fume-choked footpath in the Indonesian capital, her year-old baby perched on a hip, Dewi bin Suparno signals cars with a surreptitious finger. Suparno is among an increasing number of poor women becoming "car jockeys" — someone who rides in a car so it can meet the quota of three people required to travel at peak times in Jakarta’s so-called fast lanes.
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/ 8 February 2006
Activists and economists are outraged at Indonesian plans to cut a swathe through one of the world’s largest remaining areas of pristine rain forest to create a massive Chinese-funded palm oil plantation. The remote stretch of land on Borneo could be decimated in what critics fear is a ruse to access timber.
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/ 7 February 2006
Scientists have discovered a ”lost world” in an isolated Indonesian jungle, identifying dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said on Tuesday. The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans.
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/ 3 February 2006
Hardline Indonesian Muslims stormed into an office block housing the Danish embassy on Friday protesting cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark, as others demanded death for the cartoonist. About 100 members of the Front of the Defenders of Islam massed outside the building, chanting: "Let’s go jihad! We’re ready for jihad!".
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/ 2 February 2006
Rescue workers found eight more survivors and recovered eight bodies on Thursday as the search continued for people missing two days after a ferry sank in rough waters off eastern Indonesia, officials said. The latest discoveries brought the number of survivors from Tuesday night’s accident to 121.
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/ 31 January 2006
Forget jaded celebrities slumming it on the dance floor and illicit housemate sex: Indonesians are glued to reality TV programmes featuring the country’s most down-at-heel. <i>Surprise Cash</i> and <i>House Makeover</i>, aired weekly, were rated number two and three out of scores of reality TV programmes shown in December.
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/ 30 January 2006
The 200-plus demonstrators from the student group Concerned Muslims who had gathered in light drizzle at one of central Jakarta’s main roundabouts had a simple message for passing motorists. ”Reject Playboy! Reject Playboy!” they shouted. ”Don’t publish that filth here. Keep the Indonesian nation clean.”
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/ 25 January 2006
More than 60 Indonesians screamed anti-graft slogans at the top of their lungs in a contest aimed at encouraging the public to speak out against rampant corruption. The loudest yell clocked in at 113,2 decibels — roughly as loud as a chainsaw — and the screamer snared two million rupiah ($200) in prize money.
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/ 20 January 2006
An Indonesian publisher said on Friday that he will press ahead with a local edition of Playboy despite opposition from Muslim leaders, but promised that the risqué magazine will not contain nudes. Publisher Ponti Carollus said the Indonesian-language magazine will focus on articles rather than photographs.