Continue reading »]]> Indonesian police Saturday were studying DNA evidence from the remains of two suicide bombers who carried out twin attacks on luxury Jakarta hotels, as security was tightened across the country.

Suspected Islamist suicide bombers detonated powerful devices at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in an upmarket business district Friday, leaving nine dead and up to 50 injured including at least 18 foreigners.

A New Zealand businessman was confirmed dead and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is due in Jakarta later Saturday, said he feared the worst for three missing Australians, including diplomat Craig Senger.

National police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri called on hotels and shopping malls across the vast, mainly Muslim archipelago of 234 million people to raise their security protocols amid warnings of follow-up attacks.

A military spokesman said 500 troops were on standby to deploy in Jakarta in support of police.

Police across the Philippines were also on heightened alert over fears homegrown Islamists could try to emulate the Jakarta bombings, and citizens were urged to report any suspicious behaviour or unattended baggage.

Hotels in New York were also increasing security although Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said there was no information that a Jakarta-style attack was imminent.

US President Barack Obama condemned the bombings and offered Indonesia help in the recovery effort.

“I strongly condemn the attacks that occurred this morning (Friday) in Jakarta and extend my deepest condolences to all of the victims and their loved ones,” he said.

Manchester United were due to stay at the Ritz-Carlton next week as part of an Asian tour but they cancelled the trip, denying a sell-out crowd of 100,000 the chance to see the English football giants play an Indonesia XI on Monday.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, the worst in Indonesia since 2005, but suspicion inevitably fell on the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network responsible for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people.

Investigators said they found an unexploded bomb, as well as explosive chemicals and bomb-making materials in room 1808 of the Marriott, which they believe served as a control centre for the attackers.

The bombs were packed with nails, ballbearings, nuts and bolts to maximise the carnage, and appeared to be “identical” to ones previously used in JI attacks, police said.

They were also the same as bombs found in a recent raid on an Islamic boarding school in Central Java, carried out as part of the hunt for master-bombmaker Noordin Mohammed Top, leader of a JI splinter group.

Noordin is wanted for his role in the Bali attacks as well as a 2003 bombing at the Jakarta Marriott, which killed 12 people, and the 2005 truck-bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected in a landslide on July 8, said the attack was an act of terror that would have “wide effects on our economy, trade, tourism and image in the eyes of the world”.

Tourism operators on the Hindu-majority resort island of Bali said they feared for the lucrative tourism industry, which was just getting back to normal after the horrific attacks of 2002.

“I am afraid that the tourism sector which is now thriving in Indonesia would be affected significantly,” Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry representative for small businesses Sandiaga Uno told Anatara news agency.

“We hope that the bomb blasts would not deter foreign and domestic investors in making the investment in the country.”

Tourism is one of the biggest sources of foreign capital for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, which has avoided recession in the global financial crisis, but needs more foreign investment to maintain its growth trajectory.

The country’s mainstream Muslim groups joined Yudhoyono and world leaders in condemning the attacks, saying they could never be justified in Islamic teachings.

Condemnation poured in from around the world including from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, and from Indonesia’s neighbours in Southeast Asia, where JI is accused of plotting to create a pan-Islamic state.

Indonesian police examine remains for clues

Continue reading »]]> An Indonesian military plane has crashed, killing at least 97 people.  As Daniel Schearf reports from

The military transport plane crashed into homes near an air force base Wednesday morning as it was coming in for a landing.

Over one hundred military personnel and their families were on board the Hercules C-130 plane when it went down in an area of East Java.

Witnesses reported seeing parts of the plane falling from the sky and hearing explosions.

Indonesian television showed burning wreckage scattered across rice paddies.  The tail was the only section of the plane left intact.

First Marshal Bambang Sulistyo is a spokesman for the air force.  He says there is an investigation under way to determine what caused the crash.

He gives the death toll and says it may rise, but so far there are 15 survivors.

Indonesian authorities said the plane, which had been scheduled to fly on to Indonesia’s Papua province, was almost 30 years old.

Indonesia’s air force has suffered a series of deadly crashes.

In April, 24 military personnel died when their Fokker aircraft crashed into a hangar at an air base in West Java.

Indonesia’s commercial aircrafts have also in recent years suffered deadly crashes.

The poor safety record led the European Union to ban Indonesian airlines from its airspace.

Indonesian Military Plane Crash Kills At Least 97

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The Eastern Dam collapsed after reservoir overflowed due to heavy rains. Health Officials estimates death toll to reach 100.

Rescue workers are still searching for survivors, the tragedy already claimed 52 victims. Aerial photos shows an enormous hole on the dam.

Emergency crews evacuated hundreds of survivors, including terrified children weeping with fear, from the flood zone. Others paddled out on their own makeshift rafts.

Indonesia continues search after dam burst kills 52

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An oil spill in eastern Australia has forced officials to declare a 60 kilometer stretch of the Queensland coast a disaster zone amid warnings that legal action could be taken against the operator of the cargo ship that lost its fuel in stormy seas.

Australian authorities originally said about 30 tons of oil were lost when 31 containers of fertilizer slipped from the Hong Kong-flagged “Pacific Adventurer” ship and punctured fuel tanks in the hull as the ship was battered in cyclone-stirred waters.

Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said Friday the spill was larger than had been reported but did not say exactly how much oil was shed.

The authorities have declared large stretches of normally white-sand beaches along the popular surf region of the Sunshine Coast a disaster zone, as well as Moreton and Bribie islands, which are national parks.
At the beach resort of Coolum, north of the Queensland state capital of Brisbane, dark brown waves rolled ashore instead of the usual whitecaps and aqua waters of the Coral Sea.

Anna Bligh says the causes of this environmental disaster will be thoroughly examined.

“This will be the subject of a full investigation. If there is any evidence that any government agency could have or should have done better, we will certainly be taking all relevant action to address that,” said Bligh. “At this stage my priority is to have teams of people out there cleaning this mess up to protect wildlife in what may well be the worst environmental disaster that Queensland or the south-east of our State has faced.”

Bligh says the ship’s operators would be held liable for the costs of the massive cleanup operation.

The lost 31 containers that held hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer have not been found.

The ship was on its way to Indonesia to deliver its shipment when the accident occurred.

Its owner, Hong Kong-based “Swire,” may face fines of up to $1 million if found guilty of environmental breaches.
Conservationists have warned that oil could be washed up for weeks to come along Queensland’s popular coastline.

Hundreds of people are involved in the clean-up and are trying to stop rivers from being contaminated.

The Queensland government has defended its response to the disaster thus far amid accusations that it failed to act quickly enough.

VOA News – Australia Declares Oil Spill Area Disaster Zone

Continue reading »]]> Indonesia issued a tsunami warning after an earthquake struck southeast of Melonguane in North Sulawesi, a telephone text message from the country’s meteorology agency said on Thursday.

The U.S. Geographical Survey said the 7.5 magnitude quake had struck in the Talaud Islands of Indonesia, 323.5 km (201 miles) south-southeast of General Santos, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no destructive widespread tsunami threat existed. But the agency added that eathquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that could be destructive along coasts located within 100 km of the quake epicenter.

Indonesia issues tsunami alert after Sulawesi quake | Reuters

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At least six people have been killed after an Indonesian ferry carrying hundreds of people sank off Sulawesi island.

“Eighteen of the more than 260 aboard the Teratai Prima were rescued, but bad weather and nightfall have complicated search efforts for the remaining passengers,” Bambang Ervan, a spokesman for the transport ministry, said on Sunday.

“We still don’t know the fate of the missing people, whether they had lifejackets on when the ship was hit and, [as] it happened at dawn, most people were probably asleep,” Ervan said.

“Based on interviews with the surviving crew member, the ship was hit by a huge wave which caused it to turn upside down.”

Indonesia’s Elshinta radio station broadcast the sound of relatives weeping as they waited in Samarinda for news of those who had been aboard the ferry.

Stormy weather

Jusman Syafi’i Djamal, Indonesia’s transport minister, said the captain – who was among those pulled alive from the sea – reported that 150 people jumped off the boat before it sank, but their fate was unknown.

Djamal added that there had been a tropical cyclone that caused tides of five or six metres.

The 700-tonne left Pare-pare on the island of Sulawesi and was heading for Samarinda, on the Indonesia half of Borneo, but got into difficulties and sank 50km off western Sulawesi at about 04:00 local time on Sunday morning (20:00 GMT).

Fishermen rescued 18 passengers and crew who were found drifting in three life rafts, according to Taufik Bulu, the head of maritime safety at Pare-pare port.

Safety record

Ferries are the principle form of transportation in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands with a population of 235 million people.

The transport ministry’s spokesman said the ferry was not overcrowded because it had room to carry up to 300 passengers.

Accidents are common among ferries in Indonesia where overcrowding and poor safety standards are rife.

Indonesia has come under pressure in recent years to improve its transport sector following several serious accidents.

In October 2007 at least 30 people died when the Acita III capsized off Baubau, another 50 died in a fire on board the Levina I in February 2007 and in December 2006 around 400 people drowned when another ferry, the Senopati Nusantara, sank in the Java Sea.

Al Jazeera English – Asia-Pacific – Deaths as Indonesian ferry sinks

Continue reading »]]> A 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia’s West Papua province at 7:33 a.m. on Sunday (2233 GMT on Saturday), according to the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).

The quake was a strong aftershock following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake which jolted eastern Indonesia’ West Papua at 4:43 a.m. local time on Sunday (1943 GMT Saturday), Indonesia’s leading website Detik News quoted BMG as saying.

The epicenter of the 7.6-magnitude aftershock was 0.88 degrees southern latitude and 133.38 degrees eastern longitude with a depth of 10 km below the sea level, the BMG said.

There was no immediate report of casualties or damage so far.

7.6-magnitude quake hits Indonesia’s West Papua_English_Xinhua

Continue reading »]]> JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake in remote eastern Indonesia cut power lines, cracked building walls and sent panicked residents running out of their homes toward higher ground Sunday, authorities and witnesses said.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Seismology Agency warned that with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 it was strong enough to cause a tsunami. However, there were no immediate reports of giant waves and the warning was lifted within an hour.

The tremor struck at 2:43 a.m. local time, around 85 miles off the coast of Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 6 miles.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the strength at a more powerful 7.6 magnitude and nearly three times the depth. Shallow earthquakes generally cause more damage than deeper ones.

Electricity went off and people fled their homes in the dark, fearing a tsunami, said Hasim Rumatiga, a local health official.

In the town of Sorong, very near to the epicenter, a resident told El Shinta radio buildings and houses had been slightly damaged.

Indonesia straddles a chain of fault lines and volcanoes known as the Pacific ”Ring of Fire” and is prone to seismic activity. A huge quake off western Indonesia caused the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed around 230,000 people, more than half of them in Sumatra.

(This version CORRECTS RECASTS lede, UPDATES with tsunami alert lifted, ADDS details, color. corrects Asian tsunami was 2004, sted 2005.)

Tsunami Alert Issued After Indonesian Quake – NYTimes.com

Continue reading »]]> A major earthquake struck Sunday near the northern coast of West Papua, Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The magnitude-7.6 tremblor occurred about 4:43 a.m. (2:43 p.m. Saturday ET), about 95 miles (150 kilometers) west-northwest of Manokwari, Indonesia, and about 105 miles (170 kilometers) east-northeast of Sorong, two cities in the Indonesian province of West Papua.

No tsunami warning was issued after the earthquake, according to the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The quake was centered at a depth of 21.7 miles (35 kilometers).

7.6 earthquake strikes near West Papua, Indonesia – CNN.com

Continue reading »]]> JAKARTA (AFP) — A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck at sea off Indonesia’s Sumatra island, the US Geological Survey said Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The quake struck 141 kilometres (88 miles) southwest of the city of Bengkulu at a depth of 35 kilometres at 3:50 pm (0850 GMT), the USGS said in an email alert.

A geologist at Indonesia’s geophysics agency told AFP no tsunami alert had been issued for the quake.

“We don’t know yet of any damage from the quake,” Edison Gurning said.

Bengkulu city was badly damaged in a 8.4-magnitude quake that killed 23 people in September 2007.

Indonesia was the country worst hit by the earthquake-triggered tsunami in December 2004 that killed more than 200,000 people in 11 nations across Asia, including over 168,000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province alone.

This month, it launched a high-tech tsunami warning system in a bid to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.

The Indonesian archipelago straddles several continental plates in an area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, where seismic and volcanic activity is recorded on an almost daily basis.

Earlier this month, six people were killed and some 10,000 displaced by a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake which struck Sulawesi island.

AFP: