Rescue workers dug desperately for survivors on Sunday as residents returned to ruined homes on Indonesia’s densely populated island of Java a day after a powerful earthquake killed more than 3,000.
Trucks full of volunteers from Indonesian political parties and Islamic groups, as well as military vehicles carrying soldiers, headed south from the ancient royal city […]
Night fell on a grieving population. Homes lost, loved ones dead, somber crowds of people were unable to imagine what tomorrow might bring.
Makeshift tents were built in front of ruins, and even in front of the homes that survived. Their occupants were wary of spending the night under roofs.
“We’re afraid to go inside,” Sardjono, a […]
Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) Commander Marshal Djoko Suyanto said repairs to Adi Sucipto airport’s runaway damaged by an earthquake that struck Yogyakarta early Saturday morning were expected to be completed Saturday night, so airplanes bringing humanitarian aid could land on Sunday morning.
“We hope the work to repair cracks in the runway […]
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono accompanied by his wife and a number of cabinet ministers visited earthquake victims at Soeradji Tirtonegoro Hospital in the Central Java town of Klaten on Saturday.
During the visit, Susilo asked the quake victims to be patient in facing the disaster that had befallen them, the Antara […]
Hundreds of injured men, women and children packed the grounds of Sardjito Hospital in this historic city yesterday, stretched out on pieces of bloody cardboard as cries of agony pierced the evening air.
Several relatives read the Koran to victims as they anxiously awaited treatment. But the staff was stretched to its limits by a magnitude-6.2 […]
The quake’s epicentre was offshore but earthquake centre official Fauzi says it did not cause a tsunami.
But police chief Sampurnojati has told El Shinta the quake was followed by tidal waves.
Brook Weisman-Ross, the regional disaster coordinator for children’s charity Plan International, says rumours of a tsunami led to chaos.
“People were panicking with rumours of a […]
A powerful earthquake flattened buildings in Yogyakarta early Saturday, killing at least 2,500 people and injuring thousands more in the country’s worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami.
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 5:54 a.m. near the ancient city of Yogyakarta as many people slept, causing death and damage in many nearby towns.
The roofs […]
As thousands of people flee erupting Mount Merapi, the 80-year-old man entrusted by royalty to watch over the volcano’s spirits is going nowhere - and insists the mountain is safe.
“There is no risk,” Maridjan said outside his home just six kilometres from the crater, which was billowing ash and searing-hot gas clouds Monday. “I am […]
Indonesian Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said here on Monday that the government had already prepared enough funds for refugees of Merapi volcano which was expected to erupt soon.
A total of 20 billion rupiah (2.3 million US dollars) has been channeled to local governments to deal with the refugees, […]
Indonesian experts upgraded Mount Merapi’s status to top level Saturday, ordering the compulsory evacuation of thousands of residents in the danger zone as the volcano’s crater threatened to erupt.
“As of 8:30 a.m. today (1.30 GMT Saturday), Merapi’s status has been upgraded to the highest level,” said Subandriyo, a volcanologist at a nearby monitoring post.
Subandriyo, who […]
More than 22,000 people have been evacuated from the slopes of Indonesia’s smoke-belching Mount Merapi, but the volcano appears to have temporarily calmed down.
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 locals prepared for a visit by […]
Lava streamed down the sides of Indonesia’s mystical Mount Merapi on Tuesday, but the clouds of hot gas belching from the top were substantially smaller than the day before.
Around the base of the mountain that some Indonesians consider sacred, thousands of residents went about their daily lives despite orders to evacuate.
Vulcanologists say Merapi was in […]