Indian Ocean nations exercise mass tsunami warning

14.10.09 - Africa, Australia, Indonesia - Author: asia news ia - Comments: (0)

Sirens wailed continue crowds fled across Indian Ocean nations Wednesday in a mass drill simulating a giant tsunami similar to the 2004 disaster.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Japan Meteorological Agency sent out bulletins for a 9.2-magnitude quake and tsunami.

The exercise was aimed at testing warning systems and preparedness in nations in Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and Africa.

Hundreds of people including school children ran from the coast in the Indonesian province of Aceh, the area worst hit by the 2004 tsunami.

Red Cross volunteers, police and soldiers helped people smeared with mud and fake blood into ambulances which carried them away from the coastline.

But for many, the drill only served to revive horrific memories of the real thing.

“This sort of exercise is useful for letting me know if a tsunami strikes. But the sirens and crowds make me panic, they remind me of the 2004 tsunami,” said Bachtiar, a resident of the Acehnese town of Ulee Lheue.

Another resident, 20-year-old Risnawati, said Acehnese needed no reminding of a tsunami’s destructive power.

“Acehnese already know how to save their life if a tsunami strikes. They will automatically run to higher ground if there are signs of a tsunami, like receding water,” she said.

Climate change affect agriculture

01.10.09 - Africa - Author: asia news ia - Comments: (0)

Rural Zimbabweans learn to use minimum-tillage farming methods to feed themselves. A new study estimates that global climate change will be especially hard on African agriculture.

“Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate changes,” notes a new study from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that looks at how climate change will affect food production around the world by 2050.

“Developing countries are likely to be hardest hit by climate change and will suffer bigger declines in crop yields,” said Gerald Nelson, lead author of the study and an IFPRI research fellow, in a conference call with journalists on Tuesday.

Temperatures will rise to “intolerable levels” for some plants, he noted, while higher temperatures will encourage proliferation of weeds, insects, and crop diseases.

And those negatives won’t necessarily be offset by an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. In the laboratory, plants generally respond favorably to higher levels of CO2, but the story is different in farm fields. There, higher concentrations can cause more insect damage.