Azkaban, un posto come un altro dove vivere

Rescuers scoured the slopes of Indonesia’s most volatile volcano for survivors Wednesday after it was rocked by an eruption which killed at least 30 people, including an old man who refused to abandon his ceremonial post as caretaker of the mountain’s spirits.

Authorities warned the thousands who fled Mount Merapi’s wrath not to return during Wednesday’s lull in volcanic activity, but some villagers were desperate to check on crops and possessions left behind. In several areas, everything – from the thinnest tree branch to couches and chairs inside homes – was caked with ash that looked like powdery snow.

The latest blast Tuesday night eased pressure that had been building up behind a lava dome perched on the crater. But experts warned the dome could still collapse, causing an avalanche of the blistering gas and debris trapped beneath it.

“It’s a little calmer today,” said Surono, the chief of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. “No hot clouds, no rumbling. But a lot of energy is pent up back there. There’s no telling what’s next.”

Mount Merapi, which translates as “Fire Mountain,” has erupted many times over the last 200 years, often with deadly results. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were incinerated, leaving up to 1,300 dead.

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A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 250 people in rural Haiti is stabilizing, health officials said Monday, as aid groups and the government race to prevent it from spreading to the capital’s squalid camps of earthquake survivors.
The outbreak was expected to continue spreading, but aid groups and the government said a drop in the death rate and the number of new cases suggested it could progress more gradually than feared.
“The situation is beginning to stabilize. Since yesterday we have registered only six new deaths,” Health Ministry Director Gabriel Timothee said at a news conference.
Officials said no cases have originated in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where authorities fear abysmal hygiene, poor sanitation and widespread poverty could rapidly spread the disease through the sprawling tent slums erected after the Jan. 12 earthquake. (AP)

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Questo libro è dedicato a
Gerry Browne, un uomo a cui tengo
e che tiene a me

Intervista ad Ed Kashi sul suo lavoro ormai pluriennale sulla situazione ormai divenuta esplosiva nel delta del Niger.

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La tua terra non è semplicemente il posto dove sei nato e vissuto da bambino. La tua terra si espande e man mano che tu vivi le tue radici affondano nel suolo di altri paesi. E’ un dono della vita, ma anche un peso, perchè gioia e nostalgia diventano tuoi compagni sempre più inseparabili.

On Monday, October 4th, a large reservoir filled with toxic red sludge in western Hungary ruptured, releasing approximately 700,000 cubic meters (185 million gallons) of stinking caustic mud, which killed many animals, at least four people, and injured over 120 – many with chemical burns. The 12-foot-high flood of sludge inundated several towns, sweeping cars off the road as it flowed into the nearby Marcal River. Emergency workers rushed to pour 1,000 tons of plaster into the Marcal River in an attempt to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing on to the Danube some 45 miles away. The red sludge in the reservoir is a byproduct of refining bauxite into alumina, which took place at an alumina plant run by the Hungarian Alumina Production and Trading Company. A criminal probe has just been opened by Hungarian authorities.

Link al reportage, via The Big Bicture

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The Indonesian island of Sumatra is home to some of the world’s fastest shrinking forests. Pulp and paper companies have set up shop in the Riau Province, gaining approval for logging operations. Increasing global demand for palm oil, an ingredient in biodiesel, has also given way to expansive palm oil plantations in the forests. The World Wildlife Fund recently released a report warning the destruction of Sumatra’s natural forests is a significant factor in global climate change and is pushing rare species closer to extinction. Nearly 30% of the Riau’s forests have been cleared for palm oil plantations, 24% for industrial pulpwood plantations, and 17% has been deforested but not replaced by any new vegetation. 78% of the Riau province was covered by forest in the 1980s but today it covers just 27%. In 2005 alone, it lost 11% of forest cover.

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Un nuovo reportage dall’agenzia VII ad opera di Tomas van Houtryve sulla Corea del Nord.

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