Indonesia faces new tsunami risks

0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 29.04.2020 (SciDev.Net): Many coastal communities in the Indonesian archipelago, including the proposed site of the new capital on the island of Borneo, could be at potential tsunami risk from submarine landslides, according to a study published by the Geological Society of London.

Tsunamis, whether caused by earthquakes, volcanoes or submarine landslides, pose a specific risk to the sustainability and resilience of coastal communities. They claim thousands of lives, damage to property and cause widespread destruction to infrastructure. South-East Asia is particularly prone to tsunamis due to its seismically active geology.

A British-Indonesian team of researchers which carried out the study, published this month (April) in the Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences, has identified a number of ancient submarine landslides off the east coast of Kalimantan in the Makassar Strait, between the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi.
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How Vanuatu women are responding to climate change

0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Gender
ActionAid Vanuatu conducting COVID 19 awareness and TC Harold early warning preparedness for islanders. Photo Credit: © ActionAid Vanuatu

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 20.04.20 (IPS): Sitting atop a banyan tree branch, Fiona Robyn had a cell phone tightly clasped in her fist raised high to get a signal. She was impatiently waiting for the SMS weather alert from the Women Wetem Weta (Women’s Weather Watch – WWW) hub in Port Vila as cyclone TC Harold raged towards the Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean on 5th April.

No sooner had she received the message, Robyn, a WWW leader in Eton on the eastern coast of Efate island in Vanuatu, immediately swung into action. She began mobilising other women and youth to help widows, the physically challenged and older people secure their roofs, store food and clean water, secure documents in air tight containers, and move those in unsafe houses to the local school serving as an evacuation centre.

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COVID-19: Beaches, bouncers and quarantine bouquets

1 Comment read Arts, Entertainment & Lifestyle, Features, Health & Science
Bondi Beach, Sydney. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 27.03.2020 (Live Mint): Autumn (March – May) is one of my favourite seasons in Sydney, my home for two decades. Bright blue skies, gentle sea breeze and the mellow warmth of the sun provide a perfect setting for outdoor barbecues, picnics, music and theatre events. But as new shoots were just appearing on the charred landscape after a prolonged spring-summer of bushfires, droughts and floods, which had devastated communities and the economy, the novel Coronavirus (COVID 19) put a full stop to life as we know it.

`Social distancing’ is the diktat we must all abide by, if the spread of current contagion has to be halted. All non-citizens and non-residents have been banned from arriving in the country and Australians have been advised not to travel overseas. This big island continent is fortified. Friends far afield from Nepal to the UK are trying to get a flight home. But with the country’s flagship carrier, Qantas, slashing 90 percent international flights, these are trying times.

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