Strong quake hits off Indonesia's eastern coast

JAKARTA: A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake rattled the Molucca Sea off Indonesia's eastern coast on Sunday, seismologists said.

The quake, which was at a depth of 46 kilometres (28 miles), struck at 03:30 am (1830 GMT) about 195 kilometres south of Manado in northern Sulawesi island, the US Geological Survey said.

There was no immediate tsunami warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates meet, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

The archipelagic nation was hardest hit by the earthquake-triggered Asian tsunami in December 2004 which killed an estimated 168,000 people in Aceh province.

Source: The Times Of India

Crush at Indonesia rock concert kills 10

JAKARTA (AFP) — Ten young people were trampled or crushed to death as hundreds of music fans tried to force their way out of a rock concert in the Indonesian city of Bandung, police and hospital officials said Sunday.

Witnesses told the local Pikiran Rakyat daily that people inside the packed venue were trying to escape the crush just as hundreds of others were surging their way inside.

"Ten people were killed, one of them has not yet been identified. Six other people were injured," Bandung police chief Bambang Suparsono told the Detikcom online news portal.

The dead are mostly teenagers. He said an investigation was underway into the incident late Saturday.

Detikcom, quoting another police officer, said the capacity of the building was for 700 people but that only around 400 attended the concert by a popular heavy metal group called Besides.

The concert was being held to launch its latest album.

However, Pikiran Rakyat said there were more than 1,500 people inside, which it said was about 500 more than the building's capacity.

"We have questioned 51 witnesses and three suspects," Suparsono said according to Detikcom. The three were all from the organisers, he said, and added that more "from the committee of the crew" could also join the three as suspects.

"The bodies of 10 people have been brought here but all but three have been taken by their family," said Toto, a staff member at the local hospital morgue where the dead were initially brought.

Suparsono said the crush occurred as people tried to leave the Asia-Africa Arts Hall in downtown Bandung.

"The results of the autopsies showed that most of the victims had suffered from breathing difficulties," the city police chief said, suggesting they were crushed to death.

One 19-year-old witness told Pikiran Rakyat: "Outside, there were hundreds of people pushing to enter. They were pushing at the gate.

"Inside, there were also a lot of people who wanted to leave because the hall was so packed that it was difficult to breathe."

Another witness said the venue was so crowded that he did not have enough room to bend down to retrieve a shoe which had come loose.

A third told the paper that while the band was playing, hundreds of people forced their way in, damaging the entrance lobby.

West Java Police Chief Susno Duaji was quoted by the Pikiran Rakyat as saying from the scene that police inside the building had asked the organisers to halt the concert because many of those in the venue had already fainted.

He confirmed most of the victims showed signs of lack of oxygen.

The art deco former movie house, next to a building that hosted the first Asia-Africa conference in 1955, remained closed to the public Sunday.

A dozen police officers were posted to close off the entrance, although passers-by could see the broken glass panels of the main entrance inside and damaged iron grilles, the state Antara news agency said.

In December 2006, 10 people died and dozens were injured in a stampede at a packed football stadium for a rock concert in Kedungwuni in Indonesia's Central Java province.

Detikcom said then the stadium, built to take 6,000 people, was filled to almost double its capacity for the concert by the group Ungu.

In 2004, eight people were killed in two separate stampedes at concerts by the pop group Sheila.

Source: AFP

Floods kill six in Indonesia: officials

JAKARTA (AFP) — Six people were killed, dozens injured and hundreds forced to flee their homes after floods in Indonesia following days of heavy rain, officials said Saturday.

Water as high as one metre (three feet) had submerged Situbondo district in Indonesia's densely populated East Java since Friday evening, but started to recede Saturday, the health ministry said.

"Two people were killed, one hospitalised and 27 others injured in Situbondo floods," Rustam Pakaya, a health ministry official, said in a text message received by AFP.

Separately, four people died and hundreds forced to evacuate their homes due to severe floods in eastern Indonesia, Sentianus Medi of the local disaster management centre said earlier in the day.

He said all four victims drowned after rivers overflowed following three days of heavy rain.

"Four people in three districts in East Nusa Tenggara province were killed yesterday (Friday)," he told reporters. "They all lived on riverbanks."

The official said more than 500 people had left their homes and 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of rice fields were under water.

Landslides and flooding are common in Indonesia during the rainy season, which hits its peak from December to February.

Torrential rain across Central and East Java provinces at the start of the year triggered landslides and floods that killed more than 100 people and displaced tens of thousands.

Source: AFP

Garuda airlines pilot charges over Indonesia crash

The pilot of a Garuda flight which crashed in the Indonesian city of jogyakarta last March has been arrested and charged with six offences.

He faces up to seven years jail for manslaughter.

Twenty one people including five Australians were killed in the crash.

Our Jakarta correspondent, Geoff Thompson, reports as cockpit warnings blared 15 times, Captain Marwoto Komar rapidly descended and overshot the runway at Jogjakarta airport on the morning of March 7, 2007.

The jet he was piloting, Garuda Flight 200 crashed and burned killing 21 people including five Australians.

Police in Jogjakarta have now questioned Captain Komar and listed the six charges they are pursuing against him as they prepare a brief to be handed to prosecutors.

All the charges are based on manslaughter offences with the most serious charge carrying a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.

Source: Radio Australia

Jakarta-area woman dies of brid flu, raising Indonesia's toll to 103

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A Jakarta-area woman died of bird flu on the weekend, raising Indonesia's death toll from the disease to 103.

Health officials identified the victim as a 29-year-old housewife from Tangerang, on the western outskirts of Jakarta.

A Health Ministry official says she died in Persahabatan Hospital on Saturday, six days after developing symptoms.

The woman had reportedly visited her parents, whose neighbours keep chickens.

However, it was unclear whether the chickens were infected.

Meanwhile, a 38-year-old woman from Kali Deres, the Jakarta neighbourhood closest to Tangerang, has also been confirmed as being infected with bird flu and is being treated at the same hospital.

Indonesia has recorded human bird flu deaths regularly since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003.

So far human-to-human transmission of the disease has been rare, but scientists are worried that could change if the virus mutates in certain ways.

Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for incubating a global bird flu pandemic.

Source: The Canadian Press

Floods kill three, leave nearly 1,500 homeless in Indonesia capital

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An official says flooding from torrential rain killed three children and left nearly 1,500 people homeless in Indonesia's capital.

Roads across much of the sprawling metropolis were submerged Friday, bringing traffic to a near standstill and forcing many people, including the country's president, to abandon their vehicles.

Poor visibility also temporarily shut down the main international airport on Friday.

The head of Indonesia's health department crisis centre says three children drowned while playing in swollen rivers.

He says another 1,463 people had been displaced by the floods.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was forced to abandon his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz Sedan about two kilometers from his palace over fears it would get stuck in the flood. He jumped into one of his secret service's SUVs, leaving his motorcade behind.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, where tens of millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains, and Jakarta is rarely immune.

Last year, more than 40 people were killed in the city of 12 million after rivers burst their banks. Critics said rampant overdevelopment, poor city planning and clogged drainage canals were partly to blame.

Source: The Canadian Press

Obituray: President Suharto of Indonesia.

A decade after was he pushed from power former President Suharto's footprint on Indonesia has remained so strong that the world's fourth-most populous (226 million) country struggles to deal with it consequences.

How much good did he do? How much harm? And how to deal with a legacy of brutality and corruption which some still want to deny.

Suharto ruled for 32 years. He boosted growth and kept a lid on communal violence. But he left in his wake a brutal Army, crippled economy, a neutered political system, and dysfunctional national institutions.

"Suharto ran Indonesia like a mafia don," says Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy at Northwestern University, Chicago. "Everything turned on the don, all business went through the don, the don was the source of security, and he destroyed everything, Parliament, the rule of law, the intellectual community, and turned the police and military into his personal instruments."

Not everyone agrees.

"Yes, there was corruption. Yes, he gave favours to his family and his friends. But there was real growth and real progress," said Lee Kuan Yew, longtime autocratic prime minister of neighbouring Singapore after visiting Suharto in hospital last month.

Suharto came to power in 1965, crushing what was officially described as a Beijing-backed communist coup. Communism seemed a powerful threat to Western nations in those days. In an atmosphere of apprehension many Western countries - not least Australia and New Zealand being so close to Indonesia's great size - much preferred it being an independent nation to a communist one.

But it is estimated as many as 500,000 Indonesians suspected of being communists or sympathisers died in an Army-inspired bloodbath in the months after he took power. Over the next three decades, Suharto's Army continued to kill - on student campuses, in the rebellious provinces of Aceh and Papua, and in East Timor - where about 200,000 died from war and famine, as well as in "mysterious shootings" of criminals.

Elsewhere in the sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands much of his rule was relatively peaceful, but stability often came at the cost of repression of dissent. Thousands of political prisoners were kept in labour camps on Buru Island, including members of the intelligentsia.

Independent observers have said violations of human rights were common. But Suharto never faced any charges for crimes against humanity. He denied the charges of corruption, and partly because of claims of poor health he was not prosecuted.

By the time he stepped down, amid the social and economic chaos of 1998, many Indonesians summed up his era as KKN, a local acronym for Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism.

Source: NZHerald

Indonesia closes Jakarta airport due to heavy rain

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesia was forced to temporarily close its main international airport Friday due to poor visibility following torrential rains, officials said. Almost 150 planes were delayed or diverted and thousands of passengers stranded.

Roads across much of the sprawling capital were submerged in knee-deep water, bringing traffic to a near standstill and forcing many people to abandon their vehicles — including the country's president. The main highway leading to Sukarno-Hatta International Airport also was cut off for much of the day.

The airport was reopened after five hours.

"The runways weren't flooded," said Hariyanto, a spokesman for the airport. "But visibility fell to less than 300 meters (330 yards) — compared to the minimum standard of 500 meters (550 yards)."

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains, and the bustling metropolis of 12 million is rarely immune.

Last year, more than 40 people were killed in Jakarta after days of incessant rains caused rivers to burst their banks. Critics said rampant overdevelopment and clogged sewage canals were partly to blame.

Hariyanto said 92 flights were delayed and 55 diverted to other airports Friday, including several international flights.

At least 8,000 passengers were stranded after hours of pounding rain inundated nearby highways, he said. Officials deployed dozens of buses to transport some to Jakarta above the black, muddy water.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was forced to abandon his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz Sedan two kilometers (1.24 miles) from his palace over fears it would get stuck in the flood. He jumped into one of his secret service's SUVs, leaving his motorcade behind.

Source: International Herald Tribune