Indonesia hikes danger level for deadly tsunami volcano
Carita, Dec 27 : Indonesia on Thursday raised the danger alert level for an erupting volcano that sparked a killer tsunami at the weekend, after previously warning that fresh activity at the crater threatened to trigger another deadly wave.
Authorities also widened a no-go zone around rumbling Anak Krakatoa to five kilometres (three miles) -- up from a previous two kilometres -- and warned shell-shocked residents to stay away from the coast, after more than 400 were killed by Saturday night's killer wave.
Plumes of ash burst into the sky as pyroclastic flows -- hot gas and other volcanic material -- flowed down the crater, threatening anyone too close to the volcano and raising the risk of rough seas for boats in the vicinity.
"There is a danger of more eruptions," said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
"People (near the volcano) could be hit by hot rocks, pyroclastic flows and thick ash." Authorities raised the crater's status to high alert, the second-highest warning on the country's four-point danger scale, while aviation officials ordered flights to be redirected away from the area.
"We've raised the status of (the volcano) since this morning because there's been a change in the eruption pattern," Kus Hendratno, a senior official at the Krakatoa observatory, told AFP Thursday.
The new flows posed no immediate danger to area towns as the volcano sits in the middle of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands.
But the status change sparked new fears with many residents already scared and refusing to return to their communities over fears of another tsunami.
"This worries me," said Ugi Sugiarti, a cook at the Augusta Hotel in hard-hit Carita.
"I've already left." Sukma, a security guard at the shattered Mutiara Carita Cottages, added: "Just please pray for us and that everything will be okay." A section of the crater -- which emerged at the site of the Krakatoa volcano, whose massive 1883 eruption killed at least 36,000 people -- collapsed after an eruption and slid into the ocean, triggering Saturday night's killer wave.
At least 430 people were killed, with 1,495 people injured and another 159 were missing.
Nearly 22,000 people have been evacuated and are living in shelters.
On Wednesday evening, the disaster agency said that wind was blowing "ash and sand" from the volcano to the nearby towns of Cilegon and Serang on Java, and advised residents to wear masks and glasses if they had to venture outdoors.
Torrential rains have sparked flooding in some areas, hampering the relief effort and heaping more misery on the stricken region, as thousands cram emergency shelters.
Medical workers have warned that clean water and medicine supplies were running low -- stoking fears of a public health crisis.
Indonesia, a vast Southeast Asian archipelago, is one of the most disaster-hit nations on Earth due to its position straddling the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide.
The tsunami was Indonesia's third major natural disaster in six months, following a series of powerful earthquakes on the island of Lombok in July and August and a quake-tsunami in September that killed around 2,200 people in Palu on Sulawesi island, with thousands more missing and presumed dead.
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Jharkhand horror: Man kills live-in partner, chops body into 40 pieces
Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.
