Lombok lifted 10 inches by earthquake: experts

Island still reeling

TANJUNG, Indonesia, Aug 11, (Agencies): Scientists say the powerful Indonesian earthquake that killed nearly 400 people lifted the island it struck by as much as 25 cms (10 inches).

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said on Saturday that 387 people died, jumping from the 321 it reported the previous day, as search and rescue teams continued to sift through the rubble and people already buried by relatives are accounted for.

Using satellite images of Lombok from the days following the Aug. 5 quake, scientists from NASA and the California Institute of Technology’s joint rapid imaging project made a ground deformation map and measured changes in the island’s surface. In the northwest of the island near the epicenter, the rupturing faultline lifted the earth by a quarter of a meter. In other places it dropped by 5-15 cms (2-6 inches).

Nugroho

Observations

NASA said satellite observations can help authorities respond to earthquakes and other natural or manmade disasters.

Almost 390,000 people, about 10 percent of Lombok’s population, are homeless or displaced after the earthquake, which damaged and destroyed about 68,000 homes. Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said three districts in the north of Lombok still haven’t received any assistance. The governor of West Nusa Tenggara province, which includes Lombok, has extended the official emergency period by two weeks to Aug 25.

“It’s estimated the death toll will continue to grow because there are still victims who are suspected of being buried by landslides and collapsed buildings and there are deaths that have not been recorded,” Nugroho said. The number of evacuees fluctuates, he said, because not all evacuee points have been counted and some people tend to their gardens and properties during the day and return to the tent camps at night. Some people don’t need to evacuate because their homes aren’t damaged but have come to refugee centers because they feel traumatized.

Nearly a week since the 7.0 quake, Lombok is still reeling but glimmers of normality were returning for some and devout villagers are making plans for temporary replacements of mosques that were flattened.

WARSAW, Poland:

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Polish trade union leaders and government officials at a climate conference called Thursday for nations to protect industrial jobs and be given the freedom to choose their own approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The two-day meeting that opened in Katowice aimed to work out the positions of Poland’s trade unions and industry before an international climate summit in December taking place in the industrial city.

Poland chose to host the COP-24 summit in Katowice to show how this former coal-mining city has been turned into an environment-friendly one in the almostthree decades after the collapse of communism and after Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

At the Dec 3-14 summit, more than 190 countries taking part in the 2015 Paris Agreement are to work out a rulebook for implementing the landmark climate accord.

Participants at the Poland conference said nations should be allowed to choose their own ways of cutting carbon emissions in accordance with their industrialization and reliance on fossil fuels. They said developing economies should not be forced to cut jobs.