World News
Semeru volcano on high alert after eruption: The danger threatens populated areas
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Eva Deschamps / December 4, 2022
The Semeru volcano, on the island of Java in Indonesia, erupted on Sunday and the authorities have declared maximum alert, one year after a deadly disaster.
The Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Prevention (PVMBG) has raised the alert level of Mount Semeru from level three to level four, the highest, its spokesperson Hendra Gunawan told Kompas TV.
This means that the danger threatens populated areas and that the activity of the volcano has intensified,” he explained.
Located in the east of the island of Java, of which it is the highest point with an altitude of 3,676 meters, Mount Semeru spewed Sunday a cloud of ash about 1.5 km high.
No casualties were reported immediately after the eruption, but Gunawan advised nearby residents to stay at least 8 km away from the crater.
Authorities also asked people to avoid a 13 km area along a river, toward which the volcanic ash cloud was moving.
Shelters were set up to house displaced people, and authorities distributed masks to nearby residents to protect them from air pollution by the ash.
Videos circulating on social networks showed plumes of smoke rising from Mount Semeru and at least one village covered in ash and bathed in a dark haze.
After the eruption, the Internet was cut and the cell phone network was down, according to a journalist from AFP.
For its part, the Japanese Meteorological Agency warned of a possible tsunami, caused by the eruption of the Indonesian volcano, around 14:30 in the islands of Miyako and Yaeyama, in the extreme south of the Japanese archipelago, according to the Kyodo agency. An hour later, however, no damage had been reported.
The last eruption of Mount Semeru, in December 2021, had killed at least 51 people. Mud and ash flows had engulfed entire villages and nearly 10,000 people had to flee their homes.
Indonesia is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes strong volcanic and seismic activity. The Southeast Asian archipelago has about 130 active volcanoes.
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Sylvie Claire / September 23, 2023
At least 25 people, including two children, died when a bus crashed into a ravine in the Andean region of Huancavelica, in southern Peru, the authorities announced in a revised death toll on Monday evening.
An initial police report put the death toll at 20, with a further 35 injured. A statement from the Ministry of Health later that morning put the death toll at 24. Finally, at the end of the day on Monday, the death toll stood at “25 dead and 34 wounded”, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The accident occurred on Sunday night, when the bus carrying over 50 passengers from Huanta in Ayacucho to Huancayo in the Junin region ran off the road.
Images show the damaged bus lying on its side near a river below the ravine, debris and personal belongings strewn all around.
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte expressed her “condolences to the families” from New York, where she will be attending the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations. The Peruvian Episcopal Conference, for its part, urged the government to “carry out a serious investigation” to prevent such accidents from happening again.
On August 13, another accident in the same region left 13 people dead and 5 seriously injured.
Road accidents are frequent in Peru, mainly due to speeding and poor road maintenance, especially in mountainous areas.
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Sylvie Claire / September 17, 2023
In Japan, the number of people aged 100 has reached a record level: the world’s third-largest economy now has 92,139 people aged 100 or over. That’s 1,613 more than a year ago, reported the Ministry of Health in Tokyo on Friday.
For over half a century, the number of people aged 100 has been rising every year. Due to a low birth rate and almost non-existent immigration, no other industrial state is aging as fast as this East Asian country.
Japan’s population is also shrinking at a record pace. Last year, the number of Japanese fell by 801,000, the biggest drop since comparable data have been recorded. There are now 122.4 million.
When the Japanese Ministry of Health began compiling statistics in 1963, there were 153 centenarians. Twenty-five years later, there were over 10,000. According to the latest figures, around 88% of centenarians are women. Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world. Life expectancy for women is around 87 years, and 81 for men.
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Steph Deschamps / September 17, 2023
The death toll from the earthquake in Morocco has risen to 2,946, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior announced on Wednesday evening. A further 5,674 people were injured.
The previous death toll was 2,901. The death toll is expected to rise further. Hopes of finding survivors are now very slim. Rescue workers have not yet been able to reach all the villages affected in the Atlas Mountains.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the country on Friday night. The epicenter was located some 80 kilometers southwest of Marrakech. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 300,000 people in and around Marrakech were affected by the disaster.
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