Indonesia's Bali rattled by quake; dozens injured

A powerful earthquake jolted Indonesia's popular resort island of Bali on Thursday, causing widespread panic and injuring at least 50 people, many with broken bones and head wounds.

The walls of some temples along the coast crumbled, and witnesses told local radio and television stations the roofs of some homes collapsed.

The US Geological Survey said the 6.0-magnitude quake was centred 60 miles (100 kilometres) southwest of the island. It hit 36 miles (60 kilometres) beneath the ocean floor.

Although not strong enough to trigger a tsunami, the quake was felt on neighbouring Java and Lombok islands, hundreds of miles (kilometres) away.

"It knocked me off my motorcycle," said one badly shaken Bali resident, Miftahul Chusna.

Candy Juliani, a public relations officer for the Sanur Beach Hotel, said terrified guests fled the building.

"We have special emergency routes for this type of situation, but everyone was so scared, they just ignored them," Juliani said.

At least 50 people were hurt, many with cuts, broken bones and head wounds, said Wayan Sudanti, a hospital spokesman.

Three were in critical condition.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.

Plane crashes in Indonesia, 18 feared dead

Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan on Thursday said that a small plane carrying 18 people crashed in western Indonesia.

He said the CASA C-212 aircraft went down on Thursday in the North Sumatran village of Bahorok.

It was carrying three crew members and 15 passengers.

Ervan says rescuers received reports about the crash from local residents and were still trying reach the scene.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelagic nation of 240 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents in recent years, from plane and train crashes to ferry sinkings. Many are blamed on overcrowding and poor safety standards.

US to build ties with India in EA Summit

Aiming to build ties with emerging countries like India and Indonesia, President Barack Obama will attend the East Asia Summit in November, an Obama administration official said. "There are many aspects of our strategy of greater commitment to institutions like the East Asia Summit, President Obama will make his first appearance as US President in November, building ties with emerging states like India and Indonesia, obviously dealing with the extraordinarily complex set of relationships with a country like China," a senior State Department official said. "But at the top of the list is our relationship with our partners and our allies.

We have five treaty allies in Asia – Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand," the official told reporters travelling with the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enroute to San Francisco to attend the US-Australian Ministerial, better known as the AUSMIN followed by the APEC Women And The Economy summit. He said, over the last seven years, there was already a very strong relationship between Australia and the US, it has become even stronger. "We are working on a variety of things that we'll be discussing over the next couple of days.

We are going to talk directly about how US and Australian forces can operate closely together, can work together in a variety of ways, and to see how Australia can play a role in what is termed the Global Posture Review," the official said. Referring to the relationship between the US and Australia, the official said more recently, their discussions and focus of cooperation has got much further afield.


"We worked very closely on China with Prime Minister Rudd and, who now is Foreign Minister, is probably more than any other leader has just a remarkable command of China, has lectured in Chinese universities in Chinese, and has provided us his expert advice and commentary about how to proceed," he said. "We have worked with Australia on architecture and on trade. Architects in Australia have given us enormously good advice about how to position ourselves in this critical period on Asia. And as importantly, we have worked in what we might call out-of-area pursuits," he said.

"Australia's been enormously helpful in Afghanistan and in efforts on Pakistan. And more recently, Foreign Minister Rudd has been deeply engaged in a variety of efforts associated with supporting the Arab Spring both through bringing together other likeminded nations and also coordinating closely with the US," the official said.

Study :India, China face highest risk from natural disasters

A mapping firm Maplecroft says,Emerging economies like India, China, Philippines and Indonesia face the highest economic risk from natural disasters.

Despite the US and Japan having the highest economic exposure to natural hazards, the aforementioned emerging economies are proportionately at greater risk from them as they lack the capacity to combat the impact of a major disaster.

Natural hazards have been more costly to the world economy in 2011 than any other year on record. The report said. "The tsunami in Japan, tornadoes in the US, the earthquake and flooding in Australia have all contributed to $265 billion for the first six months of the year,"

According to the Natural Hazards Risk Atlas 2011 released by Maplecroft, 196 countries were ranked with respect to their economic exposure to natural hazards like earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, floods and drought.

However, a different perspective emerges when countries are ranked in terms of socio-economic resilience, as per which China,

India, the Philippines and Indonesia feature in the 'high risk' category, while countries like the US and Japan were rated as 'low risk'.

Maplecroft's analysis states that large developed economies like the US and Japan have the highest economic exposure to natural hazards, but they also have measures in place to withstand the impact, such as their economic strength, strong governance, well-established infrastructure, disaster preparedness and tight building regulations.
Citing the example of Japan, the report said nearly 40 per cent more people were exposed to tropical cyclones in thatcountry than the Philippines. Yet if both countries experienced similar sized cyclones, fatalities in the Philippines would be 17 times higher than in Japan.

"The emerging economies, although buoyant with growth, lack the socio-economic conditions to limit their disaster risk. This lack of resilience could threaten their economic growth and the extent to which businesses with operations there hope to flourish," Maplecroft CEO Alyson Warhurst said.

"Much of the growth of emerging economies is now based on increasing domestic consumption. As their relative purchasing power grows, so too will the absolute economic value exposed to natural hazards," Warhurst added."Investors, who are currently diversifying portfolios into Asian countries, also need to factor natural hazard risks into their investment strategies".

Indonesia: volcano erupted

Mount Lokon spews hot lava and volcanic ash during an eruption in Tomohon in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province July 14, 2011. Indonesia's Mount Lokon erupted to spew hot lava and volcanic ash as high as 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) in the north of Sulawesi island, prompting panicked residents to flee the agricultural area, a government official said on Friday.

The Lokon volcano erupts near Tomohon. The Indonesian volcano erupted late July 14, spewing rocks, lava and ash hundreds of metres into the air, an official said, three days after its alert status was raised to the highest level. There has been a significant rise in volcanic activity at Mount Lokon on Sulawesi Island since June 9, prompting hundreds of people to evacuate the area.It would evacuate hundreds of people living near Mount Lokon on Sulawesi island after raising the volcano's alert status to the highest level.