JAKARTA: Captain pilot Ricosetta Mafella knew something was wrong in Palu but had no idea that what he felt on the runway and what he saw along the coast of Palu and Donggala in Central Sulawesi province was a 7.4-magnitude earthquake, which triggered a tsunami.
The Batik Air flight 6231 with 148 people on board was rolling on the runway when he sensed an unusual rocking movement during the last seconds before he took off at 6:02 p.m. local time from Mutiara Sis Al Jufri airport.
“I asked permission from the air traffic controller to take off and the tower responded: 'Batik Air 6231 runway 33 clear for take off.' When I reached 1,500 feet altitude, I contacted the tower again but there was no response,” Mafella told Arab News.
“As I took off, I looked out of the window and saw something strange happening on the sea along the coast of Palu and Donggala. There were about five large round white waves forming a row along the coast. I had no idea what they were. Something strange was happening but I tried to think positively.”
As he flew higher to 8,000 feet, he saw there were already about eight round, white waves with a radius that kept getting longer.
“It was like a row of white plates you put on a table, but in reality they were really large, round waves on the sea. I saw them all during seven minutes after we took off and before we changed our direction,” he said.
When the flight arrived in Makassar, South Sulawesi province, an hour later, he learned that a powerful earthquake and a tsunami had hit Palu and the “white plates” he saw on the sea were rolling waves that had formed owing to submarine landslides caused by the quake.
“Apparently those were the initial waves that later turned into a tsunami,” he said, adding that it was a breathtaking sight he could never forget.
He also learned that the air traffic controller who gave clearance for his flight to take off, Anthonius Gunawan Agung, had died from internal injuries and broken legs after jumping off the tower that was swaying in the quake.
“When he didn’t respond after I called him again at 1,500 feet high, I thought he was taking a break,” Mafella said.
The pilot described Agung as his “guardian angel” for keeping him and the other 147 people on board safely airborne, and dedicated a “wing of honor” to him.
Meanwhile, down in the coastal area of Palu, Suwarman Caco, a community neighborhood chief in Besusu Barat sub-district was sleeping in his house when the quake struck.
“The ground was shaking really hard. I was thrown here and there as I tried to get out of the house with my wife. My children and my grandchildren were nowhere to be seen,” Caco told Arab News, adding that he was reunited with them later in the evening at 11 p.m.
Since his house, which remains intact, is 300 meters away from Talize Beach, Caco said he didn’t see the tsunami but heard people screaming “Water, water, water!” 10 minutes after the tremor.
He estimated that more than 200 people from his neighborhood were on the beach as they were going to attend the opening of the Palu Nomoni Festival on the beach. The festival’s opening was scheduled for 8:30 p.m. and by the time the quake struck, people were already arriving.
Caco said that according to people who saw the tsunami, the dark-watered waves were seven meters high and swept the beach with a thundering sound within 10 minutes of the earthquake.
Five days after the twin disasters hit Palu and the neighboring districts of Donggala, Parigi Moutong and Sigi, the number of casualties has passed 1,000 and the number of people badly injured, missing and displaced has also risen.
National Disaster and Mitigation Agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the number of people who have died in the disaster has reached 1,234, while there were now 799 injured, 99 still missing and 16,367 displaced.
“Some of the casualties have been identified through face recognition and their fingerprints, and they have been buried,” Nugroho said.
At least 65,733 houses are damaged but Nugroho said the authorities still can’t estimate the number of people buried in the rubble of houses on Petobo, Sigi district and Balaroa residential area in Palu, which was built not far from the Palu-Koro fault.
Indonesian pilot describes a strange sighting on the sea before tsunami hit Palu
Indonesian pilot describes a strange sighting on the sea before tsunami hit Palu
- The Batik Air flight 6231 with 148 people on board was rolling on the runway when it sensed an unusual rocking movement
- At 8,000 feet, pilot saw there were already about eight round, white waves with a radius that kept getting longer
Related
Trump tells Putin to make Ukraine deal ‘now’ or face tougher sanctions
Trump said he was “not looking to hurt Russia” and had “always had a very good relationship with President Putin“
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump stepped up the pressure on Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine Wednesday, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war.
Trump’s warning in a Truth Social post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term.
“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump said.
Trump said he was “not looking to hurt Russia” and had “always had a very good relationship with President Putin,” a leader for whom he has expressed admiration in the past.
“All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.”
He added: “Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE A DEAL.’“
Russia already faces crushing US sanctions over the war since invading Ukraine in 2022 and trade has slowed to a trickle. Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden’s administration imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow’s energy sector earlier this month.
But Trump — a billionaire tycoon famed for his book “The Art of the Deal” — and his administration reportedly believe there are ways of toughening measures to press Putin.
The United States imported $2.9 billion in goods from Russia from January to November 2024 — down sharply from $4.3 billion over the same period in 2023, according to the US Department of Commerce.
Top US imports from Russia include fertilizers and precious metals.
It was Trump’s toughest line on Putin since he returned to the White House this week, and comes despite fears that it was Kyiv rather than Moscow that he would strongarm into making a peace deal.
During a White House press conference on Tuesday Trump said only that it “sounds likely” that he would apply additional sanctions if Putin did not come to the table.
The US president however declined to say whether he would continue Biden’s policy of sending billions of dollars in weaponry to help Ukraine.
“We’re looking at that,” he said at the press conference. “We’re talking to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky, we’re going to be talking to President Putin very soon.”
Trump has also said he expects to meet Putin — with whom he had a summit in his first term in Helsinki — soon.
Prior to beginning his new inauguration on Monday, Trump had vowed to end Ukraine war “within 24 hours” and before even taking office, raising expectations he would leverage aid to force Kyiv to make territorial concessions to Moscow.
But his promised breakthrough has proved elusive.
In unusually critical remarks of Putin on Monday, Trump said the Russian president was “destroying Russia by not making a deal.”
Trump added that Zelensky had told him he wanted a peace agreement to end the war.
Putin congratulated Trump on his inauguration for a second term on Monday.
The Russian leader added that he was “open to dialogue” on Ukraine conflict with Trump’s incoming US administration, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure “lasting peace.”
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, whose hyper-masculine style and professed attachment to traditional values has increasingly found favor among some US Christian conservatives.
US special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI both investigated alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — which Trump in his post on Wednesday dubbed once again the “Russia hoax.”
Mueller won convictions of six members of the Trump campaign but said he found no evidence of criminal cooperation with Russia by the Trump campaign.
Political will, financial empowerment essential for gender equality: WEF panelists
- Alicia Barcena Ibarra: When women have economic autonomy, it’s easier for them to participate on many fronts
- Ibarra: We don’t want only women or only men. We need both because they have complementary visions
DUBAI: Political will is crucial for bridging the global gender gap and protecting women from pressing challenges, a panel of experts told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Panelists acknowledged some progress in advancing female political representation, as 15.5 percent of heads of state around the world have been women over the past decade.
However, they called for more concerted efforts to bridge the gender gap in political power. According to WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report, it will take 168 years to reach gender parity, but if every economy had a gender-balanced Cabinet, global gender parity could be within reach in 54 years.
Alicia Barcena Ibarra, Mexico’s secretary of environment and natural resources, stressed that building women’s economic autonomy was key to advancing their political representation.
“When women have economic autonomy, it’s easier for them to participate on many fronts because when they are dependent on economic terms, that’s when they are vulnerable to corruption, dependency and abuse,” Ibarra said.
In Mexico, the first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected in October last year in a historic moment for the country. Under law, Congress now has to include 50 percent women, paving the way for the the first woman to lead the country’s Supreme Court, as well as the first female governor of the central bank.
While these strides on the political level have reflected positively on women’s social participation and inspired a young generation of Mexicans, Ibarra said that it revealed the pressure on women to perform.
Complementing her sentiments, Francois Valerian, chair of Transparency International, said that the lack of financial resources for women compared to men made females more vulnerable to abuses of power, state corruption and climate change.
“Pakistan’s floods, for example, left many women and children in need to receive aid,” said Valerian, calling for parity in political power to solve these issues at the community level.
Even during elections, women needed more financial resources for their campaigns “because they have less money, they are outsiders, and need to convince people they are to be trusted. Also, they need money for their safety in many countries,” Valerian said, as he urged governments to empower women to run for election through dedicating funds for this.
Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, minister of state and minister of foreign affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, stressed that gender parity was necessary in all sectors to advance peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives. So far, women’s inclusion had been achieved at the grassroot level.
She said that women needed to be included in decision-making and negotiating peace at the top level to ensure female concerns were well represented.
“There’s a need to think about how do we make sure that this is a cross-cutting approach and not just women at the local level who then have to own what is decided at the top level,” Wagner said.
At the UN General Assembly last year, only 19 speakers were women, including five heads of state and three heads of government, according to UN figures.
Wagner said that the starting point should be international organizations reflecting the progress on gender equality, and called for a female UN secretary-general.
“I think all our eyes are shifting toward Latin America because of the geographic rotation, with a lot of expectations that a continent that has distinguished itself with so many women that have assumed positions of leadership will also help us achieve that important milestone,” she said.
In peacemaking, the role of both genders was necessary for progress. “We don’t want only women or only men. We need both because they have complementary visions,” Mexico’s Ibarra said.
At least 12 rail passengers killed in western India after jumping onto tracks over fire alert
- Accident occurred in Maharashtra State, near Pardhade railroad station 410 km southwest of Mumbai
- Hundreds of accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management
NEW DELHI: At least 12 train passengers were killed on Wednesday after being hit by another service on an adjacent track in western India after they jumped from their coaches in panic to escape a rumored fire incident, the Press Trust of India reported.
At least six other people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals, the news agency cited police officer Dattatraya Karale as saying.
The accident occurred in Maharashtra State, near the Pardhade railroad station, 410 kilometers (255 miles) southwest of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.
PTI said the victims jumped off the Pushpak Express train, which had stopped after some passengers pulled an emergency chain. Those who disembarked were hit by another express train on the adjacent railroad track, PTI quoted railway spokesman Swapnil Nila as saying.
“Our preliminary information is that there were sparks inside one of the coaches of Pushpak Express due to either ‘hot axle’ or ‘brake-binding’ (jamming), and some passengers panicked. They pulled the chain, and some of them jumped down on the tracks. At the same time, Karnataka Express was passing on the adjoining track,” a senior railway official told PTI.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, hundreds of accidents occur every year on India’s railways, which is the largest train network under one management in the world.
In 2023, two passenger trains collided after derailing in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focussing on the modernization of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion.
Afghan Americans fearful after Trump order halts refugee program
- Almost 200 family members of active-duty US military personnel approved for refugee resettlement in the US will be pulled off flights between now and April
- They are among nearly 1,560 Afghan refugees who will be taken off flight manifests, according to VanDiver and the official
WASHINGTON: An executive order by US President Donald Trump to suspend refugee admissions has magnified the fears of one Afghan American soldier who has long been worried about the fate of his sister in Kabul.
The soldier is afraid his sister could be forced to marry a Taliban fighter or targeted by a for-ransom kidnapping before she and her husband could fly out of Afghanistan and resettle as refugees in the US
“I’m just thinking about this all day. I can’t even do my job properly because this is mentally impacting me,” the soldier with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division told Reuters on Tuesday. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Almost 200 family members of active-duty US military personnel approved for refugee resettlement in the US will be pulled off flights between now and April under Trump’s order signed on Monday, according to Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of veterans and advocacy groups, and a US official familiar with the issue.
They are among nearly 1,560 Afghan refugees who will be taken off flight manifests, according to VanDiver and the official.
They said the group includes unaccompanied children and Afghans at risk of Taliban retaliation because they fought for the US-backed government that fled as the last US troops withdrew from the country in August 2021 after two decades of war.
The UN mission in Afghanistan says the Taliban have killed, tortured and arbitrarily detained former officials and troops. It reported in October that between July and September, there were at least 24 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, 10 of torture and ill-treatment and at least five former soldiers had been killed.
The Taliban instituted a general amnesty for officials and troops of the former US-backed government and deny accusations of any retaliation. A spokesman for the Taliban-backed government did not immediately respond to questions about fears of retribution against those families awaiting relocation.
A UN report in May said that while the Taliban have banned forced marriages, a UN special rapporteur on human rights remained concerned about allegations that Taliban fighters have continued the practice “without legal consequences.”
A crackdown on immigration was a major promise of Trump’s victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of US refugee programs up in the air.
His executive order, signed hours after he was sworn for a second term, said he was suspending refugee admissions until programs “align with the interests of the United States” because the country cannot absorb large numbers of migrants without compromising “resources available to Americans.”
DESTINY UNCLEAR
“It’s not good news. Not for my family, my wife, for all of the Afghans that helped us with the mission. They put their lives in danger. Now they will be left alone, and their destiny is not clear,” said Fazel Roufi, an Afghan American former 82nd Airborne Division soldier.
Roufi, a former Afghan army officer, came to the US on a student visa, obtained citizenship and joined the US Army. He witnessed the chaotic Kabul airport pullout as an adviser and translator for the commanding US general, and he himself helped to rescue Americans, US embassy staff and others.
His wife, recently flown by the State Department to Doha for refugee visa processing, now sits in limbo in a US military base.
“If my wife goes back, they (the Taliban) will just execute her and her family,” said Roufi, who retired from the US Army in 2022.
The active-duty 82nd Airborne soldier said he harbors similar fears, adding that his sister and her husband have been threatened with kidnapping by people who think they are rich because the rest of the family escaped to the US in the 2021 evacuation.
“She has no other family members (in Afghanistan) besides her husband,” he said.
Trump’s order has ignited fears that he could halt other resettlement programs, including those that award special immigration visas to Afghans and Iraqis who worked for the US government, said Kim Staffieri, executive director of the Association of Wartime Allies, a group that helps Afghans and Iraqis resettle in the United States.
“They’re all terrified. The level of anxiety we are getting from them, in many ways, feels like the lead-up to August 2021,” she said, referring to the panic that prompted thousands of Afghans to storm Kabul airport hoping to board evacuation flights.
Another Afghan American, who caught a flight with the US troops for whom he translated and joined the Texas National Guard after obtaining his green card, said his parents, two sisters, his brother and his brother’s family had been scheduled to fly to the US within the next month. He had found accommodations for them in Dallas.
“I cannot express in words how I feel,” said the Afghan American who asked his name be withheld out of fear for his family’s safety. “I don’t feel good since yesterday. I cannot eat. I cannot sleep.”
African Union ‘dismayed’ US withdrawing from WHO
- AU’s Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from WHO
- Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
ADDIS ABABA: The African Union expressed dismay Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, urging his administration to reconsider.
Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the US to withdraw from the UN agency, which threatens to leave global health initiatives short of funding.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from the Geneva-based WHO.
Washington is easily the biggest financial contributor to the organization and the pullout comes as Africa faces a range of health crises, including recent outbreaks of mpox and Marburg viruses.
“Now more than ever, the world depends on WHO to carry out its mandate to ensure global public health security as a shared common good,” Moussa Faki said, adding he hopes “the US government will reconsider its decision.”
He said Washington was an early supporter of the Africa CDC, the African Union’s health watchdog which works with the WHO to counter present and emerging pandemics.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and said prior to his inauguration that “World Health ripped us off.”
The United States was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO during Trump’s first term, but the move was reversed under Joe Biden.
Tom Frieden, a former US senior health official, wrote on X that the withdrawal “weakens America’s influence, increases the risk of a deadly pandemic, and makes all of us less safe.”
It comes as fears grow of the pandemic potential of a bird flu outbreak, which has infected dozens and claimed its first human life in the United States earlier this month.
WHO member states have been negotiating the world’s first treaty on handling future pandemics since late 2021 — negotiations now set to proceed without the US.
