Gunung Lewotobi Erupsi - Pengungsian disiapkan untuk 10 ribu korban

Sejumlah tempat pengungsian mulai disiapkan petugas untuk menampung sedikitnya 10.295 jiwa korban yang dilaporkan terdampak erupsi Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki di Flores Timur, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Senin pagi.

Kepala Pusat Pengendalian Operasi Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Nasional (BNPB) Bambang Surya Putra dalam laporan yang diterima di Jakarta, mengatakan bahwa sementara ini tercatat total ada sebanyak 2.735 keluarga atau 10.295 jiwa yang terdampak erupsi Gunung Lewotobi Laki-laki.

Petugas Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) Flores Timur mengkonfirmasi gedung sekolahan menjadi salah satu tempat pengungsian darurat yang disiapkan petugas gabungan, sebagaimana yang ada di Desa Lewolaga, Kecamatan Titehena.

Dari jumlah total korban terdampak ada sebanyak 207 keluarga atau 816 orang warga terdampak erupsi dari Desa Dulipali, Nobo, Nurabelen, dan Riang Rita Kecamatan Ile Bura. Korban terdampak erupsi dari Desa Dulipali saat ini disebut sedang dievakuasi menuju lokasi pengungsian di gedung sekolah di Desa Lewolaga itu.

Sebanyak 9.479 orang warga dari Desa Pululera, Nawakote, Hokeng Jaya, Boru, dan Boru Kedang di Kecamatan Wulanggitang. Selanjutnya Desa Konga, Kobasoma, Bokang, Wolomatang dan Watowara di Kecamatan Titehena.

Sementara ini menurut keterangan warga dilaporkan ada 10 orang yang meninggal dunia, delapan di antaranya merupakan warga Kecamatan Wulanggitang.

Namun belum ada laporan resmi terkait jumlah korban beserta statusnya, atau dampak kerusakan akibat erupsi Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki mengingat petugas gabungan masih melakukan pendataan di lapangan, untuk selanjutnya akan segera diumumkan BNPB.

Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupsi pada Senin pagi ini pukul 02.48 WITA. Erupsi tersebut terekam di seismogram dengan amplitudo maksimum 17 milimeter dan durasi kurang lebih tiga menit lima detik.

Batas zona bahaya untuk aktivitas masyarakat berada pada radius tujuh kilometer dari puncak Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki yang statusnya kini diumumkan meningkat dari level III menjadi level IV (Awas) oleh Badan Geologi Kementerian Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral.

Badan Geologi secara rinci menjabarkan bahwa aktivitas vulkanik di Gunung Lewotobi meningkat secara signifikan dalam beberapa pekan terakhir, sebelumnya pada Jumat (1/11) terjadi erupsi dengan tinggi kolom erupsi mencapai 1.500-2.000 meter di puncak. Pada periode ini juga terekam gempa getaran banjir yang terjadi di Desa Dulipali, Kecamatan Ile Bura, Flores Timur.

Petugas Pos Pengamatan Gunung Api Badan Geologi di Desa Pululera, Kecamatan Walanggitang mendapati adanya tumpukan material lava pada bagian timur laut yang pergerakannya sangat lambat, dari citra satelit Sentinel 2 juga terlihat material yang berpotensi menjadi lahar di area utara dan timur kawah Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki.

Bahkan terbaru hasil pengukuran petugas menggunakan drone tercatat jarak aliran lava berada di sekitar 4,3 kilometer dari pusat kawah gunung api itu. Pengaruh kemiringan lereng dan suhu lava yang masih tinggi memungkinkan lava dapat bergerak meskipun sangat perlahan.

Di saat yang sama juga tercatat kenaikan gempa vulkanik dalam dan dangkal, yakni sebanyak 119 kali gempa vulkanik dalam, 19 gempa vulkanik dangkal dan 6 kali gempa tremor harmonik yang berlanjut sampai Sabtu (2/11). Sebelumnya jumlah vulkanik dalam rata-rata 10-12 kali dalam sehari. Gempa frekuensi rendah masih terekam pada periode ini mengindikasikan adanya aliran magma menuju permukaan.

Masyarakat yang berada di radius tujuh kilometer atau lebih dekat, juga patut mewaspadai potensi banjir lahar dingin pada sungai-sungai yang berhulu di puncak Gunung Lewotobi Laki-Laki, jika terjadi hujan dengan intensitas tinggi terutama daerah Desa Dulipali, Padang Pasir dan Nobo.

Pendaki Gunung Dukono di Halmahera Utara lari berhamburan saat erupsi

Sebuah video yang memperlihatkan pendaki lari berhamburan dari puncak saat Gunung Dukono meletus pada Sabtu (17/8) viral di media sosial. Pemerintah Kabupaten Halmahera Utara, Maluku Utara telah mengeluarkan larangan bagi warga untuk mendaki gunung setinggi 1.335 meter di atas permukaan laut itu, karena masih berstatus waspada atau level II. (Harmoko Minggu/Rayyan/Rijalul Vikry)Pewarta : Harmoko-Antara News

French-made howitzer destroyed by Russia kamikaze drone – Video

The Russian military has destroyed a French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery system in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The artillery piece was discovered at its firing position in an unspecified location in Ukraine’s Sumy Region, according to the Russian military. Thermal drone footage released by the Defense Ministry shows the howitzer firing a shot while parked on a dirt road by a wooded area.

The howitzer rears into the shrubbery immediately after firing, yet ends up hit by a Lancet-family drone. The artillery piece appeared to sustain a direct hit and was destroyed with a powerful explosion observed at the site.

Over the past few weeks, multiple French-made Caesar howitzers, as well as other similar mobile artillery systems, have been destroyed by the Russian military in Sumy Region. Kiev has deployed the systems into the area to provide fire support to its forces operating in the adjacent Russian Kursk Region, invaded by Ukraine in early August.

The Russian military’s concentrated effort to hunt for the systems has seen it deploy surveillance drones to find the artillery, using various means to destroy it, including medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) strike drones, ballistic missiles and the Lancet loitering munitions.

The latter family of drones has become one of the key medium-range tools in the Russian arsenal amid the conflict, with the Lancets repeatedly used to take out Ukrainian high-value assets, such as mobile and towed artillery, anti-aircraft, radar and other systems.

$20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Google fine ‘symbolic’ – Kremlin

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The staggering fine of $20 decillion Google now owes to Russian broadcasters who were banned from YouTube is “symbolic” and intended to push the company to rectify the issues it has with them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

The eye-watering sum is supposed to make the company “pay attention” to the problem and fix it, Peskov suggested on Thursday.

“This is a specifically formulated sum, I actually can’t even pronounce this figure, but it is rather filled with symbolism,” he said, explaining that Google “should not limit the actions of our broadcasters on a whim.”

The colossal figure was first reported by RBK news outlet on Tuesday and stems from a series of lawsuits filed against Google by 17 Russian broadcasters which accused the tech giant of unlawfully blocking content and taking down their YouTube channels.

Back in October 2022, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google to restore YouTube access to the blocked Russian channels, placing a compounding penalty of 100,000 rubles per day ($1,028) for non-compliance on the company. The penalty doubles every week, according to the court’s ruling. With no cap imposed on the fine, it has now reached the $20.6 decillion mark and is set to grow even further.

The dispute between the tech giant and Russian broadcasters dates back to 2020, when the company took down the YouTube channels of Tsargrad TV and RIA news agency, citing US sanctions against their owners.

Things got worse for Russian outlets after the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated in February 2022, with dozens of other news channels blocked on the platform, including those of RT and Sputnik. A number of broadcasters subsequently sued the tech giant, winning the case in the Moscow Arbitration Court.

What’s the Beef About?

17 Russian television channels’ compensatory demands toward Google have reached 2 undecillian rubles (a 2 followed by 36 zeros), equivalent to about 20 decillion dollars (or $20,560,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to be exact). Here's what they want from the American tech giant.

The channels’ beef with Google relates to the blocking of their YouTube accounts, with the case affecting federal television channels, including Channel One, Russia 1, Russia 24, the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV, as well as smaller channels, from Parliamentary Television and Moscow Media to TV-Center, NTV, 360 TV, the Orthodox Television Foundation, the National Sports Channel and the personal channel of Sputnik and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

A Russian court previously ordered Google to restore media companies' channels, ruling that if this is not done in a nine-month period, a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,030 US) would be slapped on the company daily, and double every week until Google complied, with no limit on the total fine.

Russian media first started a series of legal battles with Google in 2020, after YouTube blocked the accounts of Tsargrad TV and RIA Fan over alleged “sanctions legislation and trade rules”-related violations. Tsargrad took Google to court, with a judge ordering the company to unblock the account or face escalating fines.

In 2022 and the start of the conflict in Ukraine, YouTube blocked Sputnik, RT, NTV and Rossiya 24’s accounts, followed by others, prompting Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service to slap Google with 4 billion rubles ($41.1 million US) in fines.

In June of 2022, Google’s Russia-based entity filed for bankruptcy, citing debts in excess of 19 billion rubles and assets of only 3.5 billion rubles. A court declared the subsidiary bankrupt in late 2023.

The affected Russian media channels have also taken Google to court in other countries to enforce Russian court decisions. In June 2024, the High Court of South Africa granted a Russian request to seize Google’s assets in that country. Google shot back in August with lawsuits in US and British courts against Russian media to try to block them from initiating further legal proceedings outside Russia.

Fun fact: Google's name itself is a reference to an astronomically large figure - a googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google parent company Alphabet confirmed in a Q2 2024 earnings report that it’s facing “ongoing” legal issues relating to Russia, assuring shareholders this would not significantly affect their business.