Word: padang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...thickly furred dog, panting in the tropical heat of Indonesia's Sumatra island, was confused. The retriever had picked up the scent of a human in the wreckage of a local college in the city of Padang, which was struck by an earthquake two days before, killing at least 515 people, according to local disaster management officials, with some 4000 more believed to still be buried. But the canine, which had arrived by chartered jet from Switzerland just hours before, hesitated. She licked the air and waved her muzzle back and forth. Something about the smell wasn't right...
Gathered in a remote area called Pulau Koto, the ex-residents of Tandikat huddled in a tent and had no idea that the tragedy that befell them extended far beyond their once-placid rice paddies and cacao fields. Learning that hundreds had died in the city of Padang, a two-hour drive away, Amin hugged his daughter in his arms. "Compared to many people, I am lucky," he says. "At least I have someone left." (Read a story about the earthquake in Padang...
Sooner or later, the citizens of Padang feared, they would be next. Sitting on the same earthquake fault line that triggered the deadly 2004 Asian tsunami, the Indonesian city of 900,000 on the island of Sumatra is one of the world's most vulnerable to seismic activity. Just after 5 p.m. local time on Sept. 30, disaster finally struck when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake jolted Padang, killing at least 529 people, according to the nation's Social Affairs Ministry...
...morning. With thousands of islands strewn across a volatile fault zone, Indonesia is often shaken by earthquakes. But the past few years have proven particularly deadly. The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and earthquake claimed 130,000 lives in Aceh, the northwestern tip of Sumatra that is not far from Padang on the western side of the island. In 2006, an earthquake hit the metropolis of Yogyakarta on the island of Java, killing more than 5,000 people. (A day before Padang was jolted, a South Pacific earthquake triggered a tsunami around the Samoan islands and Tonga, killing more than...
...Earlier this year, Padang mayor Fauzi Bahar told al-Jazeera television that he had asked for funds for potential earthquake relief and management given his city's precarious position on a tectonic fault line. His request, he said, was turned down by national authorities. In retrospect, the denial may look unwise. But Indonesia is a cash-strapped country with many cities located in unstable geological sites. As Padang digs out from this latest devastation, other Indonesians are no doubt wondering who will be the next target of nature's wrath...