Halmahera's Mount Dukono Erupted

Mount Dokono, which is located at North Maluku, Indonesia, erupted on Friday, May 25, 2012. The smoke of the eruption reached 2000 metres off the ground.

The spoke person of the National Disaster Management Agency, Sutopo P. Nugroho stated that the ash of the volcanic eruption spread out to the Tobelo area.

In addition, since June 13, 2009, people around the area have been warned and to be vigilant to this active volcano mountain that can erupt anytime soon.

Nontheless, for this recent eruption, the people around the village do not have to be necessarily evacuated since the distance between the mountain to the village is about 9 kilometres away which is safe.

Mount Dukono Eruption

“Tsunami: The Aftermath” Reflection

Tsunami: The Aftermath is a television mini-series about the problems surfaced after the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami that comes from the Indian Ocean earthquake and hit the coast bordering the Indian Ocean and one of them is Thailand. Simultaneously, this mini-series is based on the research and interviews from people that are affected from the disaster, and the issues brought up in the movies are the political, social, and economic issues that occurred.

First of all, in term of political issue, one of the scenes in the mini-series shows that the government was warned about the tsunami but they did not warn their citizens and they didn’t set up a warning system around the area. At the same time, they do not have warning, training, and briefing about the safety plans and briefing of what to do when the disaster strikes. Moreover, the Thai government didn’t do much to help and evacuate the village since it has a poor access and simultaneously, embassies from other countries were too slow to send help and evacuate their citizens. Thus, if there were warning, briefing, and easy access maybe more people could still survive because it is stated that people were unaware about the disaster and there’s a scene in the movie that shows that a man died on the way to hospital to get treatment. Moreover, there is one scene where because Thailand hospitals do not have proper equipment, the boy has to amputate his leg to save his life. Hence, there wouldn’t be so much chaos and deaths if there was warning, briefing, and easier access.

Second of all, in terms of economic issues, the government lost so many properties and they have to rebuild everything back again since the Tsunami cleanse all the buildings and flatten the land. Same as the investors in Thailand, they losses lots of money and it made the investors unsure wether they want to invest in Thailand again. In addition, there was one scene, where one of the men from the press said “that is a lot of unpaid room service.” Which is true, since everything is flatten to the ground the hotel needs to be rebuilt and they need money for it and they couldn’t get the money form the costumers anymore.

Lastly, in term of social issues, there was a scene where the monks burning all the dead bodies without identification to prevent infection or any diseases spreading because of the corpes. Additionally, the survivors are facing lots of problems and live under lots of pressure regarding the lost of their relatives and becoming homeless people. Besides that, the foreigners are facing more pressure because they are not familiar with the area and they were wondering wether their family members are still alive and how are they able to get home.  

In conclusion, after watching this video, I hope that people all over the world are aware of natural disaster. And at the same time, this video is a feedback and to raise awareness for the Thailand government to have better respond on the disaster and rebuilt the city or the village with better access and train the people to be aware of what to do when the disaster occur.

“The Cove” Reflection

Dolphin Slaughter in Taiji, Japan

Dolphin's Meat at Local Store

The Cove is a documentary about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. And at the same time, this documentary is use to give awareness to people about dolphins. Richard O’Berry who was a captivity dolphins’ trainer leads this documentary. And one day when a dolphin commited suicide by suffocating itself on his arm, he assertively combating the captivity industry, because he thinks that dolphins in captivity experienced pressure and cause stress and they should be free in the wild. Since then, he began his campaign to stop dolphin captivity.

According to the video, most Japanese are unaware of the dophin hunting and slaughtering and even the marketing of dolphi meat. And in addition, in the film it is stated that dolphin meat contains dagerously high levels of mercury that can affects to the brain, kidney, and lungs and at the same time, this toxic can causes some deseases such as acrodynia, Hunter-Russell syndrome, and Minamata desease. Yet, even though dolphin’s meat is not safe to consume, Taiji’s fishermen serve the remaining dolphin meat to the school canteen as student’s lunch. Not just people in Taiji consume and affected by the mercury from the dolphin meat. Dolphin meat is sold at local store in other parts of Japan as well and horribly they repackaged the dolphin meat as whale meat. In addition, the government and high-ranking officials are aware of this and they still keep the slaughter and selling the mercury contimated meat to their citizens and even the future of Japan.

“SOUTH PARK – Whale Wars” Reflection

Japanese killing whales all over 

South Park is an US animated television series that always brings up the current situation and trends in the US. As in one of South Park’s episode the “the Whale Whores” the issue raised in the episode was the issue of the Japanese killing whales due to the picture of the whale who was the one who dropped the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima during the second World War. And since, the Japanese think that the whales are their enemies they killed the whales all over the world heartlessly.

In the show, the aactivists were trying to stop the Japanese to kill whales and they failed because they can’t physically fight with the Japanese to stop the slaughter because it is againts the law.

Since the activists couldn’t do anything, Stan, one of the South Park’s characters had an idea to show the Japanese president the “original” photo of the culprit and instead of whale, chiken and cows are shown in the picture. And therefore, the Japanese started killing the cows and chikens all over the world.

In adddition, at the end of the show, it stated that, “now, the Japanese are normal, like us.” This means that the American accepts the heartless killing of chiken and cows rather than killing dolphins and whales. Despite the society they lived in whales and dolphins are protected animals while chiken and cows are just normal animals and can be killed. At the same time, in America, people thin that killing and slaughtering whales and dolphins is not humane and it is ‘wrong’ in the socety.