Tag Archives: asia

Indonesian authorities seeded clouds on Wednesday, trying to prevent further rain and flash floods after deluges that hit the country’s Sumatra Island over the weekend left at least 59 people dead and another 16 missing. Monsoon rains triggered a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi, eventually causing rivers to breach their banks. The deluge tore through mountainside …

The hunt is underway for a Sumatran tiger believed to have attacked a man in western Indonesia, killing him.The victim was identified by CBS News as being 26 years old. He was found dead at a plantation in the Riau province on Sumatra island on Thursday afternoon with a missing right hand and bite wounds on his neck. Local authorities …

Rescuers on Tuesday searched in rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for bodies, and whenever possible survivors, of flash floods that hit Indonesia’s Sumatra Island over the weekend. Monsoon rains and a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi caused rivers to breach their banks. The deluge tore through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra …

Mount Ibu, a volcano in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, erupted on Monday, spewing thick gray ash and dark clouds 16,400 feet into the sky for five minutes, officials said. “The volcanic earthquakes are still intense so there is a potential for a future eruption,” Hendra Gunawan, chief of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said. After an eruption …

Rescuers recovered more bodies Monday after monsoon rains triggered flash floods on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island over the weekend, bringing down torrents of cold lava and mud that left at least 44 people dead and another 15 missing. The heavy rains, along with a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi, caused a river to breach its banks. The …

A bus slammed into cars and motorbikes after its brakes apparently malfunctioned in Indonesia’s West Java province, killing at least 11 people, mostly students, and injuring dozens of others, officials said Sunday. The bus carrying 61 students and teachers was returning to a high school in Depok outside Jakarta, the capital, late Saturday from the hilly resort area of Bandung …

Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court on Monday convicted a former government official of torturing and murdering his wife and sentenced him to 24 years in prison in a case that has gripped the Central Asian nation. During the trial of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, Kazakhstan’s former economy minister, over the death of his wife, Saltanat Nukenova, thousands of people urged the authorities to adopt …

The birthday of the historical Buddha or Shakyamuni Buddha, known as Vesak in several countries, celebrates the birth of the child who became Prince Siddhartha around the end of the 4th century B.C. This is a holy occasion for all Buddhists, but is celebrated on different dates depending on the school of Buddhism or country to which one belongs. In …

Indonesian police raided what they said was a major drug lab hidden in a villa on the resort island of Bali, and arrested four people, authorities said Monday. Police raided the house in the upscale resort area of Canggu early this month, said Wahyu Widada, head of the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department, finding two drug labs in its basement. …

Reports that soldiers of Burma’s military government last week carried out a massacre of more than 30 civilians in a village in central Burma were supported Monday in interviews with a local administrator and a man who says he survived the killings. The bloodshed on Saturday morning in Let Htoke Taw village in Sagaing region’s Myinmu township, reported by independent …