Tag Archives: church bells

‘No warnings’: Powerful cyclone exposes Indonesia’s lack of preparedness

By Emanuel Dile Bataona and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

LEMBATA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Gregorius Hide, a 70-year-old farmer in the eastern Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara, said the only warning he had of an approaching swirl of muddy water that engulfed his district this week was a smell of wet earth shortly before it hit.

Tropical cyclone Seroja, one of the most powerful cyclones ever to hit Indonesia, struck on Sunday killing 163 people, mostly on the islands of Lembata, Alor and Adonara, among the poorest and least developed parts of Indonesia.

The sprawling archipelago, which is made up of more than 17,000 islands, is used to dealing with disasters ranging from earthquakes to volcanic eruptions. But cyclones of this power have been rare, leaving many areas poorly prepared.

“There were no government warnings in the village,” said Gregorius, recounting how he managed to flee with his family before returning to help treat injured neighbors and assist those who had lost everything.

Authorities will need to learn fast from the disaster since Indonesia’s weather agency (BMKG) has warned once-rare tropical cyclones are happening more often, with another potentially damaging cyclone due to hit this week.

Activists and researchers point to a slow response to Seroja, with little early warning infrastructure in place.

“We should’ve evacuated faster, like predicting when it would happen, who to evacuate,” said Dominikus Karangora of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), a non-governmental group, in East Nusa Tenggara.

Some residents used traditional means to warn people, with reports of mosques using loudspeakers and church bells to warn of imminent danger.

Indonesia’s weather agency feeds warnings to local disaster mitigation agencies and also provides warnings on its website.

Isyak Nuka, head of the disaster mitigation agency in East Nusa Tenggara, said such measures were usually effective, but the scale of flash floods and landslides was “unprecedented”.

Isyak pledged to use this disaster as a lesson to strengthen the system.

Erma Yulihastin, a climatologist at the Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, said Seroja was an anomaly in its destructive force since such cyclones do not usually gain traction in a country straddling the equator.

“Tropical cyclones don’t happen that much, but when they happen the damage is extraordinary,” she said.

Agie Wandala Putra, a researcher at BMKG, said Indonesia’s preparedness was currently skewed towards guarding against disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis and needed to put more attention on events like flooding, cyclones and droughts.

“What needs to be emphasized is not just early warning, but also our response capacity,” he said.

(Reporting by Emanuel Dile Bataona in Lembata and Agustinus Beo Da Costa in Jakarta; Additional reporting by Stanley Widianto and Fransiska Nangoy in Jakarta; Editing by Ed Davies and Tom Hogue)

Swiss church bells mark year since first COVID-19 death

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) – Swiss church bells rang out at noon on Friday and people observed a minute of silence to mark a year since the country’s first death from COVID-19.

President Guy Parmelin announced the measure on public television last Sunday, urging citizens to honor the more than 9,300 people who have died from the disease in Switzerland.

At the Notre-Dame cathedral in Lausanne, a French-language Swiss city in the western part of the country, watchman Renato Hausler rang the 16th-century ‘La Clemence’ bell.

In April, as the pandemic set in, Hausler told Reuters he had resumed the practice of climbing the 153 stone steps to its tower to ring the bell at night, to stir residents’ solidarity and courage.

On Friday Hausler said he was ringing the bell to pay tribute and to remind people to keep strong.

“It’s a call for bravery, but it’s especially a call for patience and perseverance, that’s for sure. Because it is not going to end like this, as easily as we would have like or thought,” he said, standing in front of Lausanne’s gothic cathedral which overlooks the city.

Enjoying the view was Lausanne resident and pharmacist Simon Reboh, who was also in a pensive mood.

“It is nice to be able to stop and to think about what is happening. We are grabbed by our daily lives, we don’t have the time to think,” he said.

“That’s why I’m here, in front of a view that allows me to slow down.”

(Reporting by Cecile Mantovani and Denis Balibouse in Lausanne; Writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Raissa Kasolowsky)