Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
You are currently browsing the archives for the Nature category.
30
Sep
2009
Hutchens Chronicle: Nightmare in Indonesia with thousands trapped after brutal earthquake
Sandy Hutchens Chronicle, Sept 30 – A brutal earthquake in Indonesia on Wednesday trapped thousands beneath collapsing buildings and set off a series of landslides. Over 75 people were killed in Sumatra with a climbing death toll.
Sandy Hutchens has not been to Indonesia but was horrified by the 7.6 earthquake which struck at 5:15 p.m. local time, off the coast of Padang city. This occured along the same fault line that gave rise to the the huge 2004 Asian tsunami that left more than 230,000 dead in 12 countries.
There was a tsunami warning all along the Indian Ocean. Residents fled to higher ground fearing another tsunami. The warning was withdrawn after an hour.
The first reports said 75 people were killed, but the actual number is much more than that according to Vice President Jusuf Kalla of Jakarta.
“It’s hard to tell because there is heavy rain and a blackout,” he said.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said that a mall and two hospitals collapsed in Padang, a city in Western Sumatra of 900,000. Geologists have warned could be vulnerable to a massive quake or tsunami.
“This is a high-scale disaster, more powerful than the earthquake in Yogyakarta in 2006 when more than 3,000 people died,” Supari said.
Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry’s crisis center, said “thousands of people are trapped.”
A temporary hospital was being installed to assist the injured. Medical units were on the way from neighboring vicinities.
“Many buildings are badly damaged, including hotels and mosques,” said Wandono, a Meteorology and Geophysics Agency official in Jakarta.
Videos from Padang revealed flattened structures and the gruesome foot of a person sticking out beneath the detritus.
“The earthquake was very strong,” said Kasmiati, who resides on the shore. “People ran to high ground. Houses and buildings were badly damaged.”
“I was outside, so I am safe, but my children at home were injured,” she said but the signal on her cell phone died.
The quake set off many landslides that blocked all roads to Padang. Power and communications were blocked as well. There were fires in buildings on a road to the city according to local officials.
The earthquake was felt in tall buildings in Jakarta, several hundred miles away and in Singapore and Malaysia.
Tsunamis and Hurricanes in Indonesia from YouTube offered by Hutchens
Bookmark It
28
Apr
2009
Abnormal rise of Manila water under Hutchens magnifying glass
Illustrious men ban fish pens: Sandy Hutchens apprised of this eventuality
Environmental Secretary Lito Atienza commanded the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) to impose a total ban on the management of fish pens in Laguna Bay that had been damaged by Ondoy.
Ondoy’s damage was a “welcome help” in efforts to evacuate all forms that release pollutants from the lake. The LLDA received blandishments for its “inability to take control of the lake.”
“I have personally instructed LLDA General Manager Edgar Manda to make sure that destroyed, including submerged, fishpens will not be allowed to be repaired or reconstructed by their operators and owners,” Atienza said.
He said mother nature did “the gargantuan work for us in liberating the lake of fish pens and fish cages” and it is now singularly important, nay critical, for the LLDA “to learn from typhoon Ondoy’s lessons.”
While fault was also place on climate change for the disaster, Atienza said the people’s rather poor disposal of trash as well as their building of structures in the lake further aggravated the situation.
What is all this abnormal water thing all about? Where did it start?
The Laguna Lake’s water level has suffered an abnormal rise, causing a threat to eastern Metro Manila towns especially as a huge typhoon is on the horizon.
Jun Mystical, officer of the Laguna Lake Development Authority’s special needs division-shore land management program, spoke of the “abnormal rising of the lake water” to 13.8073 meters at the peak of tropical storm “Ondoy’s” thrilla in Manila last weekend from its normal level of 12.496 meters. The water level went down to 13.33333 meters as of yesterday afternoon.
A huge amount of the lake’s water moved “landward” and cause much flooding, including areas that had never experienced flood before.
Mystical said the “slow recession” of the lake water has left many communities remaining under water since the weekend.
“What happened last Saturday was not the normal rising of the lake water but an abnormal rising of the lake water, which was not expected,” Mystica said.
He said the previous times that the Laguna Lake breached the 12.496-meter average level was in 1978 at 13.584692 meters and in 1919 at 14.621542 meters, both during a typhoon.
Mystica said the emergence of the hot new typhoon “Pepeng” might push the lake’s water level to more than 14.62226 meters.
“It is not far-fetched that Laguna Lake’s water would reach that highest point in history or that the so-called 100-year phenomenon would occur,” he said.
“Although we don’t expect it to happen sooner since it is supposed to happen by 2019, it could be that the rise in the water level of the lake now is just the start of a possible trickle, no pun intended, effect,” Mystica pointed out.
The volume of liquid that the Marikina watershed brings to the Marikina River is 3,300 cubic meters per second “at peak flood flow” while the Pasig River could only catch around 600 cubic meters per second of water. That is an abnormality. Laguna Lake can only hold a little more than two billion liters of water.
“There really is some choking going on. Flooding is inevitable since water from Marikina River flows towards the Pasig River,” Mystica explained.
“And then there’s slower receding of water from Laguna Lake because from Saturday, the water decreased only by 0.48 meters,” he said.
“It could be that the volume of water that went to Laguna Lake was really big and if there are more rains over the watershed areas within the Laguna de Bay basin (including Metro Manila, Laguna and Rizal), then there will really be slower receding of water in Laguna Lake,” he said.
“Possibly because of this, certain areas in the eastern portion of Metro Manila remain submerged in water.”
In a different interview, Gerry Carandang of the public information office of the LLDA said the abnormal rise in the water level of Laguna Lake displaced around 100,000 households in Lupang Arenda in Taytay, Cainta and Pasig.
Carandang said that the LLDA has repeatedly warned the communities in Lupang Arenda of the risk of flooding.
Did they listen?
He said the residents ignored their warning and claim they have been paying fees to the National Housing Authority for “permit to stay” in the reclaimed area.
Video: view of pasig city and laguna lake from an apartment
Bookmark It