[hang nadim] Merapi muntah lahar pula

Usaha bantu mangsa tsunami bermasalah, korban bencana cecah 442

YOGYAKARTA: Gunung berapi Merapi memuntahkan lahar buat kali pertama semalam selain meletus lima kali ketika Indonesia menghadapi kesukaran menghantar bantuan kemanusiaan kepada mangsa tsunami di Sumatera Barat

Seramai 34 orang maut kerana letusan Merapi sejak Selasa lalu manakala angka kematian tsunami meningkat kepada 408 orang dan 303 lagi masih hilang. Berpuluh-puluh mangsa terselamat daripada tsunami merana terbaring dalam hospital daif termasuk seorang bayi dua bulan yatim piatu ditemui dalam sebuah parit dipenuhi air.

Mereka yang cedera terbaring di atas tikar atau lantai ketika air hujan bocor di siling dan saluran intravena tergantung dari tali plastik yang diikat pada bumbung.

Bayi itu, paru-parunya dipenuhi cecair dan luka pada mukanya, tidur sambil matanya terkelip-kelip dalam buaian panas.

Pakar gunung berapi tempatan berkata, muntahan terbaru mungkin dapat menstabilkan lagi Merapi.
“Ia memuntahkan asap setinggi 3.5 kilometer di sebelah tenggaranya diikuti hujan debu,” kata pakar itu, Heru Suparwoko.

Beliau berkata, debu panas itu memang mengancam penduduk yang enggan akur kepada arahan supaya berpindah selepas pulang untuk menjaga ternaman dan kediaman masing-masing.

Seramai 50,000 orang lari ke tempat perlindungan sementara tetapi ramai pula yang pulang meskipun ada ancaman terhadap mereka jika Merapi meletus lagi.

“Memang susah meyakinkan orang ramai bahawa ancaman gunung berapi itu serius,” kata Pegawai Pusat Krisis Kementerian Kesihatan, Mudjiharto.

Pihak berkuasa bertanggungjawab dalam bencana percaya bahawa angka kematian akibat ombak besar yang melanda pulau Mentawai di pantai barat Sumatera Isnin lalu boleh melebihi 600 orang dengan kebanyakan mangsa dihanyutkan ke laut.

Hampir 13,000 penduduk tinggal dalam khemah mudah alih di pulau terbabit selepas rumah mereka dihanyutkan ombak besar selepas gempa bumi kuat berukuran 7.7 skala Richter.

Mentawai yang terkenal sebagai destinasii peluncur asing menyaksikan banyak mayat yang tertimbus di pantai atau tersangkut di atas pokok.

Di Pagai Utara, usaha menghantar bantuan ke pulau pedalaman terus bermasalah disebabkan laut bergelora dan kekurangan bot.

Seorang koordinator bantuan mengakui semalam bahawa bantuan kini tergendala. Suryadi yang mengkoordinasikan maklum balas bantuan dari Sumatera Barat, berkata bertan-tan bantuan tiba di bandar utama pulau terjejas teruk itu menggunakan helikopter, selepas laut ganas menghalang bot tiba selama dua hari.

Bagaimanapun, pekerja penyelamat berkata mereka tidak dapat menghantar bantuan ke perkampungan tepi pantai yang jauh di pedalaman dan hanya boleh sampai jika berjalan kaki atau melalui laut kerana jalan raya terlalu usang atau rosak kerana dilalui trak besar.

“Kami memerlukan lebih banyak bot,” kata Suryadi. – AFP/AP

Published: Friday October 29, 2010 MYT 9:10:00 AM

Death toll from Indonesian disasters tops 400

MENTAWAI ISLANDS, Indonesia (AP): The fisherman was jolted awake by the powerful earthquake and ran with his screaming neighbors to high ground. He said they watched as the sea first receded and then came roaring back "like a big wall" that swept away their entire village.

"Suddenly trees, houses and all things in the village were sucked into the sea and nothing was left," Joni Sageru recalled Thursday in one of the first survivor accounts of this week's tsunami that slammed into islands off western Indonesia.

The death toll rose to 370 as officials found more bodies, although hundreds of people remained missing. Harmensyah, head of the West Sumatra provincial disaster management center, said rescue teams "believe many, many of the bodies were swept to sea."

Along with the 33 people killed by a volcano that erupted Tuesday more than 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) to the east in central Java, the number of dead from the twin disasters has now topped 400. Mount Merapi began rumbling again Thursday after a lull that allowed mourners to hold a mass burial for its victims. There were no reports of new injuries or damage.

The catastrophes struck within 24 hours in different parts of the seismically active country, severely testing Indonesia's emergency response network.

Aid workers trickling into the remote region found giant chunks of coral and rocks in places where homes once stood.

Huge swaths of land were submerged. Swollen corpses dotted roads and beaches.

In a rare bright spot, an 18-month-old baby was found alive Wednesday in a clump of trees on Pagai Selatan - the same island where the 30-year-old Sageru lived. Relief coordinator Harmensyah said a 10-year-old boy found the toddler whose parents are both dead.

More than 100 survivors crowded a makeshift medical center in the main town of Sikakap on Pagai Utara - one of the four main islands in the Mentawai chain located between Sumatra and the Indian Ocean.

Some still wept for lost loved ones as they lay on straw mats or sat on the floor, waiting for medics to treat injuries such as cuts and broken limbs. Outside, some rescuers wore face masks as they wrapped corpses in black body bags.

A young woman named Adek sobbed uncontrollably as she tried to talk about her year-old baby who was washed away. "Oh, don't ask me again," she said, wiping her tears and turning away.

One of the hardest hit areas with 65 dead was the village of Pro Rogat, on Pagai Seatandug island.

Villagers there huddled under tarps in the rain and told how many people who had fled to the hills were now too afraid to return home.

Mud and palm fronds covered the body of the village's 60-year-old pastor, Simorangkir. He lay on the ground, partially zipped into a body bag. Police and relatives took turns pushing a shovel into the sodden dirt next to him for his grave.

His 28-year-old grandson, Rio, traveled by boat to Pro Rogat from his home on a nearby island to check on his relatives after the quake and tsunami. He said he was picking through the wreckage when someone cried out that he had found a body.

Rio walked over and saw his dead grandfather partially buried under several toppled palm trees.

"Everybody here is so sad," Rio said, as relatives prepared to lay his grandfather in the grave.

Officials say a multimillion-dollar tsunami warning system that uses buoys to detect sudden changes in water levels broke down a month ago because it was not being properly maintained. The system was installed after a monster 2004 quake and tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

A German official at the project disputed there was a breakdown, saying Monday's 7.7-magnitude quake's epicenter was too close to the Mentawai islands for residents to get the warning before the killer wave hit.

"The early warning system worked very well - it can be verified," said Joern Lauterjung, head of the German-Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning Project for the Potsdam-based GeoForschungs Zentrum. He added that only one sensor of 300 had not been working and said that had no effect on the system's operation.

At the Mount Merapi volcano, hot clouds of ash spewed from the mountain around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the Indonesian volcanology agency Subandriyo.

It was unclear whether the new activity was a sign of another major blast to come.

Residents from Kinahrejo, Ngrangkah, and Kaliadem - villages that were devastated in Tuesday's blast - crammed into refugee camps. Officials brought cows, buffalo and goats down the mountain so that villagers wouldn't try to go home to check on their livestock.

Thousands attended a mass burial for 26 of the victims six miles (10 kilometers) from the base of the volcano. Family and friends wept and hugged one another as the bodies were lowered into the grave in rows.

Malaysia sedia bantu Indonesia - Najib

HANOI 29 Okt. - Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak berkata, Malaysia sedia membantu Indonesia menghadapi bencana berganda yang dihadapinya jika mendapat permintaan khusus daripada republik itu.

Menurut Perdana Menteri, negara-negara ASEAN juga bersikap terbuka dan sedia memberi bantuan, walaupun secara khusus perkara itu tidak dibincangkan semasa Sidang Kemuncak ASEAN Ke-17 yang berlangsung di sini.

''Kalau ada permintaan khusus dari Indonesia, kita (ASEAN) sedia membantu. Malaysia juga sama," tegasnya kepada wartawan Malaysia pada akhir hari kedua Sidang Kemuncak ASEAN Ke-17, di sini, hari ini.

Bantuan itu merujuk kepada bencana alam yang melanda Indonesia iaitu kejadian gempa bumi dan tsunami di kepulauan Mentawi, kepulauan terpencil di barat Indonesia yang meragut ratusan nyawa.

Selain itu, letusan Gunung Merapi di Sleman, Yogjakarta turut megorbankan 33 orang penduduk akibat hamburan debu panas.

Beliau menegaskan, walaupun setakat ini Malaysia belum membuat sebarang keputusan mengenai perkara itu, beliau akan mengadakan perbincangan dengan Presiden Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono semasa persidangan ini.

''Kita akan lihat apa bantuan yang diperlukan dari negara kita," ujarnya lagi.

Susilo yang tiba di sini, Selasa lalu dalam rangka lawatan rasmi bagi majlis penyerahan tugas Pengerusi ASEAN dan menghadiri Sidang Kemuncak ASEAN Ke-17 terpaksa memendekkan lawatan dan berlepas pulang Rabu lalu ekoran tragedi gempa bumi dan tsunami yang melanda Indonesia, Isnin lalu.

Bagaimanapun beliau kembali semula menghadiri sidang kemuncak tersebut petang ini dan menghadiri Sidang Kemuncak Pertubuhan Bangsa Bersatu-ASEAN Ke-13 pada sebelah malamnya. - Utusan


INGATAN UNTUK KUMPULAN BENDERA

Bolehkah Kumpulan Bendera menujuk perasaan untuk memberi sumbangan kepada
Mangsa Bencana Alam.....Wang untuk mengupah kepada Kumpulan Bendera Lebih
Baik diberi kepada mangsa bencana alam.....lihat setiap kali tunjuk perasaan
menghina Malaysia,,,, setiap kali Takdir Allah...Bencana Alam berlaku...Fikir
dan Insaflah....Rakyat Malaysia tetap perihatin kepada Rakyat Indonesia...