Overturned cars lay among other debris caused by flash floods in Derna, eastern Libya, on September 11, 2023.
- | Afp | Getty Images
At least 10,000 people were feared missing in Libya on Tuesday in floods caused by a huge storm, which burst dams, swept away buildings and wiped out as much as a quarter of the eastern city of Derna.
More than 1,000 bodies had already been recovered in Derna alone, and officials expected the death toll would be much higher, after Storm Daniel barrelled across the Mediterranean into a country crumbling from more than a decade of conflict.
A Reuters journalist on the way to Derna, a coastal city of around 125,000 inhabitants, saw vehicles overturned on the edges of roads, trees knocked down, and abandoned, flooded houses.
"I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous. Bodies are lying everywhere - in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings," Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation and member of the emergency committee in the administration that controls the east, told Reuters by phone.
A boy pulls a suitcase past debris in a flash-flood damaged area in Derna, eastern Libya, on September 11, 2023.
- | Afp | Getty Images
"The number of bodies recovered in Derna is more 1,000," he said. "I am not exaggerating when I say that 25% of the city has disappeared. Many, many buildings have collapsed."
Abu Chkiouat later told Al Jazeera that he expected the total number of dead across the country to reach more than 2,500, as the number of missing people was rising.
Tamer Ramadan, head of a delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told reporters in Geneva via video link from Tunisia: "We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far."
Videos showed a wide torrent running through Derna's city centre after dams burst. Ruined buildings stood on either side.
Another video shared on Facebook, which Reuters could not independently verify, appeared to show dozens of bodies covered in blankets on the pavements.
Footage broadcast by Libyan TV station al-Masar showed people searching for bodies and men in a rubber boat retrieving one from the sea.
"We have nothing to save people ... no machines...we are asking for urgent help," Khalifah Touil, an ambulance worker, said in an al-Masar report.
Derna is bisected by a seasonal river that flows from highlands to the south, and normally protected from flooding by dams. A video posted on social media the remants of a collapsed dam 11.5 km (7 miles) upstream of the city where two river valleys converged, now surrounded by huge pools of mud-coloured water.
"There used to be a dam," a voice can be heard saying in the video. Reuters confirmed the location based on the images.
Convoys of aid and assistance were heading towards the city.
Libya is politically divided between east and west and public services have crumbled since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that prompted years of conflict.
The internationally recognised government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas but has dispatched aid to Derna, with at least one relief flight leaving from the western city of Misrata on Tuesday, a Reuters journalist on the plane said.
Other countries, including the United States, also said they would help.
All thirty-one NATO countries plus Sweden are reportedly gearing up to conduct the bloc's biggest military drills since the Cold War in early 2024. Sputnik reached out to Michael Maloof, a former security policy analyst with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to get a sense of the risks posed by the exercises.
British business media reported Monday that NATO plans to hold large-scale exercises across Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries between February and March of 2024, with the drills' pretext being to practice "repelling Russian aggression" against allies. The drills, dubbed Steadfast Defender 24, are set to involve up to 41,000 troops, 50 warships, and to feature between 500-700 air combat missions, according to sources familiar with the plans.
The exercises are the first of their kind since 2021, with the alliance previously mostly avoiding large-scale exercises in Russia's direct vicinity amid concerns about Moscow’s possible reaction amid repeated warnings by Russian Foreign Intelligence that some NATO countries may be preparing to transform the Ukrainian proxy conflict into a direct shooting war with Russia.
The drills are "designed to put Russia and allies in the most unfavorable position," former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik.
Pointing to the exercises' expected heavy focus on air power, something Ukraine has lacked utterly throughout its three-month long counteroffensive this summer, Maloof emphasized that the drills appear aimed at going "from being reactionary in terms of reacting to a crisis, to actually going on a war footing" on NATO's part, "assuming that there’s an invasion, and that Russia has allies participating."
The exercises will be meant to "show coordination on a wartime footing," the observer said, and NATO will likely use experience gained by observing fighting in Ukraine to "coordinate their air, sea, land, but also their space and cyber capabilities together."
"That said," Maloof noted, "the reality is" that much of NATO's stocks of war materiel "have been depleted because of Ukraine," with Europe and the United States each running low on weapons and ammunition after sending nearly $100 billion in arms assistance to Kiev over the past 18 months.
"If, in fact, there was a war, Russia would certainly activate ships and other aircraft and what have you in international waters and perhaps off the coast of the United States to deal with" US attempts to set up a logistical supply train across the Atlantic.
The observer doesn’t believe that the alliance is “really ready for a real confrontation and real head-on war” with Russia, with any conflagration certain to result in “tremendous losses.”
"Russia would certainly engaged its hypersonics, its hypersonic missiles, which would only take just a few minutes to get to European cities” with little if any warning time, Maloof emphasized.
“So [NATO] can show off their exercises, their bravado, and certainly Moscow can learn from them, how they might integrate their air, land, sea along with the their cyber capabilities),” he said.
Otherwise, if Russia was ever attacked directly on the ground by the Western bloc, Maloof predicts that nukes would begin to go of very quickly, given the warnings outlined in Russia's nuclear doctrine about Moscow's potential response to powerful conventional attacks which threaten the existence of the state.
"The last thing Europe needs is a war against Russia," the observer stressed, pointing out that even just the proxy war in Ukraine, in which Western countries have shed no blood, has turned into a real "disaster" for Washington’s overseas allies, causing their economies to plummet and setting back living standards at least a decade.
"Their (weapons) stocks are not up. The industries are down. And even if they wanted to get their industries up and running, they'd have to switch over to wartime production. And that would assume that you have adequate oil and gas. They don’t. This winter is going to be a really tell-tale moment for Europe on just what they can achieve realistically, as opposed to their pipe dreams and the military exercises that they conduct," Maloof summed up.
Ukrainian troops tried to advance with tanks and armored combat vehicles near the village of Opytnoy, but suffered serious losses, Denis Pushilin, acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), said on his Telegram account.
"We can see that the enemy has intensified its efforts near Opytnoye with tanks and armored combat vehicles, suffering serious losses, but the fighting goes on, the enemy is trying to improve its positions in that direction. There is an understanding of further steps for our units, there are no serious fears," he said in a video message.
According to Pushilin, there are no significant changes in the Krasny Liman direction. The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched several small attacks in the direction of the Torskoye and Serebrianka, but Russian units repelled them all. The DPR leader added that there are no serious signs of fighting heating up in the area.
He noted an "operational pause" in the Artemovsk (Bakhmut) direction, where Ukrainian troops have begun to regroup and replace their advance assault units. In the Andreyevka and Kurdyumovka directions the enemy failed to improve its position using artillery, added Pushilin.
There are no notable changes in the Maryinka direction either, and the situation in the Ugledar direction remains under control, he concluded.
The evident failure of the counteroffensive launched by the Kiev regime in early June has not stopped Ukrainian generals from sending more and more soldiers and NATO-supplied military equipment to the meat grinder. The forces of the Kiev regime did not have a single chance of success since the very beginning of the much-anticipated counteroffensive effort, according to Western military analysts.
Nonetheless, Ukraine continues to waste its own people in pointless attempts to breach Russian defenses. Having lost enormous number of citizens which either fled the country or died protecting NATO interests, the authorities adopt new laws on mobilization in order to send students, the diseased, and elderly to the frontline.
Russian Forces Repel Attack Near Rabotino, Ukraine Lost up to 145 Soldiers - Moscow
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces in early June after multiple postponements. Citing the counteroffensive's needs, Kiev pushed its Western donors to step up its military and financial aid.
The Russian military has repelled a Ukrainian attack near Rabotino in the Zaporozhye direction, and Kiev has lost up to 145 soldiers, the Defense Ministry said on Monday.
"In the Zaporozhye direction, units of the Russian grouping of troops … repelled an attack … in the area of the village of Rabotino, the Zaporozhye Region. Up to 145 Ukrainian military personnel, two tanks, three cars and a UK-made Stormer HVM anti-aircraft missile system were destroyed," the ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry, the Russian forces also repelled five attacks in the Donetsk direction, where Ukraine lost up to 200 military both killed and wounded, and three attacks in the South Donetsk direction, where Kiev lost up to 160 soldiers.
Watch: Rare Footage of Russian Iskander Ballistic Missile System In Action During Special Op
Russia's Iskander missile system is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. It has a range of up to 500 kilometers and a high degree of maneuverability and accuracy, making it a formidable tool for Moscow's military arsenal.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage showing an Iskander missile system off-roading from a shelter to a launch position, the target being a well-camouflaged command post where, according to intelligence, top Ukrainian officers gather daily.
After completing the mission, the crew leaves the vehicle in the shelter under a special camouflage net saturated with a chemical compound that neutralizes radio waves, making the installation invisible to enemy reconnaissance.
The death toll in Morocco's earthquake soared past 2,000 in the early hours of Sunday (September 10), as rescuers continued digging through mud and rubble for possible survivors, while many in Marrakech spent a second night sleeping on the streets with their homes no longer safe to return to. Diane To reports.
Rescuers raced against time on Monday to find survivors in the rubble more than 48 hours after Morocco's deadliest earthquake in more than six decades, with almost 2,700 killed in a disaster that devastated villages in the High Atlas Mountains.
Search teams from Spain, Britain and Qatar are joining efforts to find survivors of the 6.8-magnitude quake that struck late on Friday night 72 kilometres southwest of Marrakech.
Many survivors spent a third night outside, their homes destroyed or rendered unsafe. The death toll has climbed to 2,681 with 2,501 people injured, the state news agency reported on Monday.
Footage from the remote village of Imi N'Tala, filmed by Spanish rescuer Antonio Nogales of the aid group Bomberos Unidos Sin Fronteras (United Firefighters Without Borders), showed men and dogs clambering over steep slopes covered in rubble.
"The level of destruction is ... absolute," said Nogales, struggling to find the right word to describe what he was seeing.
"Not a single house has stayed upright. We're going to start our search with dogs and see whether we can find anyone alive."
In Imgdal, a village about 75 km south of Marrakech, women and children huddled early on Monday morning under makeshift tents set up along the road and next to damaged buildings. Further south, a car stood crushed by boulders that had fallen from the cliff.
In the village of Tafeghaghte, Hamid ben Henna described how his eight-year-old son died under wreckage after he had gone to fetch a knife from the kitchen to cut a melon as the family were having their evening meal. The rest of the family survived.
MUD BRICK HOUSES CRUMBLED
With much of the quake zone in hard-to-reach areas, the authorities have not issued any estimates for the number of people missing.
Roads blocked or obstructed by rocks have made it harder to access the worst-hit locations.
On a way to the town of Adassil, not far from the epicentre, rescue worker Ayman Koait was trying to clear rockfalls that were blocking traffic.
"There are worse roads further up that are still blocked and we're trying to open them too," he said, as vans loaded with aid squeezed along a narrow cleared track.
Family members react Sunday near the rubble of collapsed buildings in the village of Imi N'Tala near Amizmiz in central Morocco after the deadly Sept. 8 earthquake. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)
Many structures crumbled easily, including ubiquitous, traditional mud brick, stone and rough wood houses, one of the picturesque features that have made the High Atlas a magnet for tourists.
"It's difficult to pull people out alive because most of the walls and ceilings turned to earthen rubble when they fell, burying whoever was inside without leaving air space," said a military worker, asking not to be named because of army rules.
The harm done to Morocco's cultural heritage has been emerging gradually. Buildings in Marrakech old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were damaged. The quake also did major damage to the historically significant 12th-century Tinmel Mosque in a remote mountain area closer to the epicentre.
It was the North African country's deadliest earthquake since 1960, when a tremor was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, and the most powerful since at least 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Hospital head Col. Youssef Qamouss told CNN he has 24 doctors and 48 nurses on site, but added the staff and its capacity — that currently stands at 30 beds — can be expanded.
The makeshift field hospital in the town of Asni, southwest Morocco, which is being used to treat survivors of the earthquake. Ivana Kottasová/CNN
Qamouss and his team are used to working in disaster zones. They’ve been deployed to Jordan and the Ivory Coast in the past, helping with crises there.
“We start with a triage to determine the needs of the patients, then send them to specialists,” he said.
The hospital is formed of 16 large tents arranged in a horse shoe formation, each with a department sign. There is urgent care, ophthalmology, surgical tent, pediatrics and even a radiology department.
“(The) most common injuries are burns, fractures, cuts, injuries to the face,” Qamouss said.
Women react as volunteers recover the body of a family member from the rubble of collapsed houses in the village of Imi N’Tala near Amizmiz in central Morocco after the deadly 6.8-magnitude.
AFP via Getty Images
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL AID
Survivors struggling to find shelter and supplies have described the government response as slow, though it appeared to be speeding up on Monday.
In a televised statement on Sunday, government spokesperson Mustapha Baytas said every effort was being made on the ground.
The army said it was reinforcing search-and-rescue teams, providing drinking water and distributing food, tents and blankets.
Neither King Mohammed VI nor Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch have addressed the nation since the disaster.
Morocco had accepted offers of aid from Spain and Britain, which both sent search-and-rescue specialists with sniffer dogs, from the United Arab Emirates, and from Qatar, which said on Sunday a search-and-rescue team was on its way.
State TV said the government had assessed needs and considered the importance of coordinating relief efforts before accepting help, and that it might accept relief offers from other countries later.
Morocco’s decision to forgo German aid is not political: Foreign ministry
Both France and Germany played down the significance of Morocco not immediately taking them up on their offers of aid.
Germany said on Monday it saw no indication that the decision was political, while France said on Sunday it stood ready to help whenever Morocco made a formal request and any controversy on the issue was "misplaced".
People camp on the roadside in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Imgdal, Morocco.
REUTERS
Paris and Rabat have had a difficult relationship in recent years notably over the issue of Western Sahara, a disputed territory that Morocco wants France to recognise as Moroccan. Morocco has not had an ambassador in Paris since January.
As Germany learned from deadly flooding in 2021 in the Ahr valley, aid coordination is important during major disasters to ensure rescue workers do not impede each other, said the spokesperson.
"I'm sure that they (Morocco) have thought very carefully about which forces can be deployed where and how they can get there, what transport capacities are available, for example," the spokesperson added.
Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Sunday thanked Spain, Qatar, the UK and the United Arab Emirates for sending aid after the country's deadliest earthquake in over six decades, state TV reported. Morocco had assessed aid needs and considered the importance of coordinating relief efforts before accepting their help, it added.
Morocco’s mud brick housing makes hunt for earthquake survivors harder
Rescuers digging through the rubble after Morocco’s deadly earthquake have warned that the traditional mud brick, stone and rough wood housing ubiquitous in the High Atlas mountains reduced the chances of finding survivors.
“It’s difficult to pull people out alive because most of the walls and ceilings turned to earthen rubble when they fell, burying whoever was inside without leaving air spaces,” a military rescue worker, asking not to be named because of army rules against speaking to media, said at an army centre south of the historic city of Marrakech not far from the quake epicentre.
The traditional homes, sometimes hundreds of years old, sometimes built more recently, have long been a popular sight for tourists travelling to the mountain from Marrakech.
They are often built by the families themselves to a traditional pattern, without any architect’s help and with extensions added when they can.
Mendaftar di Akademi Kepolisian (Akpol) atau Akademi Militer (Akmil) bisa menjadi salah satu pilihan setelah menamatkan pendidikan sekolah menengah atas. Tidak sedikit yang memilih Akpol maupun Akmil karena prospek kerjanya yang jelas.
Akpol adalah sekolah lanjutan bagi lulusan sekolah menengah untuk mencetak perwira Polri. Siswa yang masuk Akpol, akan lulus menjadi Perwira Pertama Polri dengan pangkat Inspektur Polisi Dua (Ipda).
Sedangkan Akmil adalah perguruan tinggi kedinasan yang dikelola oleh pemerintah Republik Indonesia. Lulusan Akmil akan diangkat menjadi perwira TNI Angkatan Darat (AD) yang mempunyai pangkat letnan dua.
Bila masuk Akpol atau Akmil adalah salah satu tujuanmu, maka ketahui dulu apa syarat untuk bisa mendaftar.
Apakah lulusan SMK bisa masuk Akpol dan Akmil?
Berdasarkan penerimaan Akpol maupun Akmil di tahun 2023 dan sebelumnya, pendaftaran Akpol maupun Akmil terbuka bagi lulusan SMA dan MA.
Dengan begitu, lulusan SMK ternyata belum memenuhi syarat untuk bisa mendaftar di Akpol maupun Akmil.
Dilansir dari masing-masing laman resmi Akpol dan Akmil, berikut persyaratan termasuk jenjang pendidikan sebelumnya yang bisa masuk Akpol atau Akmil:
Syarat masuk Akpol
Berdasarkan persyaratan penerimaan Taruna/I Akpol Tahun Anggaran 2023 pada 4 April lalu, hanya lulusan SMA dan MA saja yang bisa mendaftar Akpol.
Persyaratan Akpol Tahun Anggaran 2023:
Warga Negara Indonesia (pria atau wanita);
Beriman dan bertakwa kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa;
Setia kepada Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia berdasarkan Pancasila dan Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945;
Sehat jasmani dan rohani (surat keterangan sehat dari institusi kesehatan);
Berumur paling rendah 18 (delapan belas) tahun pada saat diangkat menjadi anggota Polri;
Tidak pernah dipidana karena melakukan suatu kejahatan (SKCK);
Berwibawa, jujur, adil dan berkelakuan tidak tercela.
Persyaratan khusus:
Pria/wanita, bukan anggota/mantan anggota Polri/TNI dan PNS, dan belum pernah mengikuti pendidikan Polri/TNI.
berijazah serendah-rendahnya SMA/MA jurusan IPA/IPS (bukan lulusan dan atau berijazah Paket A, B dan C) dengan nilai yang sesuai ketentuan rekrutmen Akpol tahun anggaran 2023.
Syarat masuk Akmil
Mengutip dari laman resmi Akmil, ada persyaratan yang harus dipenuhi calon pendaftar Akmil.
Sama halnya dengan syarat pendidikan untuk mendaftar Akpol, untuk mendaftar Akmil yang diperbolehkan mendaftar ke Akmil adalah siswa lulusan SMA/MA saja.
Sehingga siswa lulusan SMK belum bisa mendaftar di Akmil.
Berikut syarat lengkap untuk mendaftar di Akmil mengacu pada persyaratan pendaftaran Akmil tahun 2023:
Persyaratan Umum:
Warga Negara Indonesia;
Beriman dan bertaqwa kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa (menganut salah satu dari 6 agama yang diakui di Indonesia atau penghayat kepercayaan);
Setia kepada Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia yang berdasarkan Pancasila dan Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia tahun 1945;
Berumur paling rendah 17 tahun 9 bulan dan paling tinggi 22 tahun pada saat pembukaan pendidikan pertama tanggal 1 Agustus 2023;
Tidak memiliki catatan kriminalitas yang dikeluarkan secara tertulis oleh Polri;
Sehat jasmani dan rohani serta tidak berkacamata; dan
Tidak sedang kehilangan hak menjadi prajurit berdasarkan putusan pengadilan yang telah memperoleh kekuatan hukum tetap.
Persyaratan lain untuk mendaftar Akmil adalah sebagai berikut:
Meski lulusan SMK belum bisa mendaftar Akpol maupun Akmil, lulusan SMK tetap bisa menjadi polisi maupun tentara lewat jalur pendaftaran lainnya.
Sehingga lulusan SMK jangan putus asa meski tidak bisa mendaftar Akpol maupun Akmil karena masih ada jalur lain yang bisa kamu coba untuk mewujudkan cita-citamu menjadi polisi maupun tentara.
