INDONESIA: Volcano Spews Ash In Bali, Tourists Warned

The UAE Embassy in Jakarta has issued a travel alert for tourists after a volcano erupted in Bali.

Mount Agung erupted at 3.21am local time on Sunday morning, and spewed ash up to 2,000 metres high.

The UAE mission alert citizens travelling to Indonesia’s holiday destination to be vigilant for any further development regarding the volcano’s activity.

In a statement, the embassy said: Due to the state of Mount Agung, the UAE Embassy in Indonesia advises Emiratis on the island of Bali to stay away from the volcano, take precautions and follow safety instructions.

Please register with the Twajudi service so we can locate your whereabouts. In the event of an emergency, contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation’s call centre on 800 44444.

A number of areas across Indonesia, including in Sulawesi, Lombok and the Sumatra region, are still reeling from the aftermath of earthquakes that broke out in February and March 2019.

As of Wednesday, April 24, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advised against all travel within four kilometres of the Mount Agung crater in east Bali, and to stay at least seven kilometres away from Mount Sinabung crater in Kalo Regency, North Sumatra.

These are exclusion zones put in place by the local authorities due to ongoing volcanic activity.

If you’re in either exclusion zone, you should leave immediately, said the FCO.


Tourism Observer

INDONESIA: Authorities Divert Flights From Anak Krakatau Volcano

Indonesia on Thursday raised the alert level for the erupting Anak Krakatau volcano to the second-highest, and ordered all flights to steer clear, days after it triggered a tsunami that killed at least 430 people.

A crater collapse on the volcanic island at high tide on Saturday sent waves up to 5 metres high smashing into the coast on the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Bali.

Authorities have warned that the crater of Anak Krakatau, or child of Krakatau, remains fragile, raising fears of another collapse and tsunami, and have urged residents to stay away from the coast.

There are also fears of a bigger eruption.

The volcano has been rumbling on and off since July but has been particularly active since Sunday, spewing lava and rocks, and sending huge clouds of ash up to 3,000 metres into heavily overcast skies.

The national geological agency, in raising the alert level to the second-highest, set a 5-km exclusion zone around the island.

Since December 23, activity has not stopped, we anticipate a further escalation, said Antonius Ratdomopurbo, secretary of the geological agency.

A thin layer of volcanic ash has been settling on buildings, vehicles and vegetation along the west coast of Java since late on Wednesday, according to images shared by the national disaster mitigation agency.

Authorities said the ash was not dangerous, but advised residents to wear masks and goggles when outside, while aircraft were ordered away.

All flights are rerouted due to Krakatau volcano ash on red alert, the government air-traffic control agency AirNav said in a release.

The civil aviation authority said no airports would be affected. The capital, Jakarta, is about 155 km east of the volcano.

In 1883, the volcano then known as Krakatoa erupted in one of the biggest blasts in recorded history, killing more than 36,000 people in a series of tsunami and lowering the global surface temperature by one degree Celsius with its ash.

A tsunami in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait struck two of the country’s islands without warning, killing at least 222 people and injuring more than 700, officials said here yesterday.

Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the three-foot wave, which hit the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java about 14.30pm GMT (6.30pm UAE time) on Saturday after a volcano known as the “child” of Krakatoa erupted, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

No earthquake was recorded and no tsunami warning was issued, said Rahmat Triyono, earthquake and tsunami chief at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency. We don’t know what caused the tsunami yet, he said.

Search and rescue teams were scouring rubble for survivors, with 222 people confirmed dead, 843 people injured and 28 missing, Nugroho said.

Tsunamis triggered by volcanic eruptions are relatively rare, caused by the sudden displacement of water or slope failure, according to the International Tsunami Information Centre.

Unlike those triggered by earthquakes, they give authorities no time to warn residents of the impending threat. Ben van der Pluijm, an earthquake geologist and a professor in the University of Michigan, said the tsunami may have been caused by a partial collapse of Anak Krakatoa.

Instability of the slope of an active volcano can create a rock slide that moves a large volume of water, creating local tsunami waves that can be very powerful. This is like suddenly dropping a bag of sand in a tub filled with water, he said.

Videos from the regency of Pandeglang in Java’s Banten province showed extensive damage. More than 400 homes, nine hotels and at least ten vessels were damaged or destroyed in Pandeglang, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster management agency, said on Twitter.

The area hit by the tsunami is popular with tourists from Jakarta, the capital, and many people were at the beach on Saturday when the wave struck around 9.30pm (local time).

Rahmat said no tsunami warning had been issued because such warnings are prompted by tectonic activity and no earthquake had occurred.

In September, an earthquake struck the island of Sulawesi, setting off an underwater landslide and tsunami that struck the city of Palu and surrounding areas. More than 2,100 people died.

TV images showed the seconds when the tsunami hit the beach and residential areas in Pandeglang on Java island, dragging with it victims, debris and large chunks of wood and metal.

On December 26, 2004, an Indian Ocean tsunami triggered by an earthquake killed 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 killed more than 36,000 people in a series of tsunamis. Anak Krakatoa is the island that emerged from the area once occupied by Krakatoa, which was destroyed in 1883. It first appeared in 1927 and has been growing ever since.

Saturday’s tsunami was the latest in a series of tragedies that have struck Indonesia, a vast archipelago, this year.

Successive earthquakes flattened parts of the tourist island of Lombok, and a double quake-and-tsunami killed thousands on Sulawesi island. Nearly 200 people died when a Lion Air passenger plane crashed into the Java Sea in October.

President Joko Widodo, who is running for re-election in April, tweeted that he had ordered all relevant government agencies to immediately take emergency response steps, find victims and care for the injured.

Neighbouring Malaysia and Australia both said they were ready to provide assistance if needed.

Another tsunami could strike Indonesia, experts have warned, after a powerful wave caused by a volcanic eruption killed hundreds when it swallowed coastal settlements, taking earthquake-focused disaster monitors by surprise.

While tsunamis are often triggered by earthquakes, in this case experts believe the deadly waves were generated by an eruption of the Anak (or "child of") Krakatoa volcano, which could have caused a large undersea landslide or flow of molten rock into the water.

The tsunami appears to have been caused by an underwater collapse of part of the volcano, said David Rothery, a professor of planetary geosciences at Britain's Open University.

Anak Krakatoa is an island that emerged around 1928 in the crater left by Krakatoa, whose massive 1883 eruption killed at least 36,000 people.

The tsunami that struck on Saturday was the third natural disaster to hit Indonesia in six months.

The country has 127 active volcanoes and lies on the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire" where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent.

Anak Krakatoa, located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands, is close to densely populated areas.

The volcano has been particularly active since June, noted Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff at the University of Paris-South.

We were helpless given how sudden the event took place, Bardintzeff said. The time between cause and effect was a few dozen minutes, which was too short to warn the population.

The killer wave struck at night, sweeping across tourist beaches and low-lying settlements on both sides of the Sunda Strait and catching both residents and disaster monitors totally unawares.

Signs that a tsunami was coming weren't detected and so people did not have time to evacuate, said Indonesia's disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, who blamed vandalism, technical problems and limited budgets for the lack of warning buoys.

But the Open University's Rothry said such buoys, normally positioned to monitor earthquakes at underwater tectonic plate boundaries, would still have had limited efficacy.

Even if there had been such a buoy right next to Anak Krakatoa, this is so close to the affected shorelines that warning time would have been minimal given the high speeds at which tsunami waves travel.

Simon Boxall of Southampton University said the region was in spring tide, and it would appear that the wave hit some of the coastal areas at the highest point of this high tide, exacerbating the damage done.

While the tsunami was relatively small, Richard Teeuw, a disaster risk reduction expert at the University of Portsmouth in England said: Such waves - laden with debris - can be deadly for coastal communities, especially if there is no warning.

Devastating tsunami caused by volcanic eruptions are rare; one of the most famous and deadly was caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, Teeuw said.

The likelihood of further tsunamis in the Sunda Strait will remain high while Anak Krakatoa volcano is going through its current active phase because that might trigger further submarine landslides, he said.

Sonar surveys would now be needed to map the seafloor around the volcano, but unfortunately submarine surveys typically take many months to organise and carry out, he added.

Bardintzeff warned we must be wary now that the volcano has been destabilised.


Tourism Observer

INDONESIA: Anak Krakatoa's Crater Reduced By Three-quarters After Tsunami Eruption

The Indonesian volcano which caused a tsunami that killed more than 400 people last week lost more than two-thirds of its height following the eruption which triggered the killer waves.

A section of Anak Krakatoa's crater collapsed after an eruption and slid into the ocean, generating the tsunami last Saturday night.

A visual analysis by the Indonesian volcanology agency found the volcano has lost more than two-thirds of its height, an official said Saturday.

Anak Krakatoa which used to stand 338 metres (1,109 feet) high was now just 110 metres tall.

The agency estimated the volcano lost between 150 and 180 million cubic metres of material as massive amounts of rock and ash have been slowly sliding into the sea following a series of eruptions.

Anak Krakatoa is now much shorter, usually you can see the peak from the observatory post, now you can't, Wawan Irawan, a senior official at the agency said.

Before and after satellite images taken by Japan's space agency showed that a two square kilometre chunk of the volcanic island had collapsed into the water.

The volcano, whose name means Child of Krakatoa, was a new island that emerged around 1928 in the crater left by Krakatoa, whose massive 1883 eruption killed at least 36,000 people.

The crater's status has been raised to high alert, the second-highest warning on Indonesia four-point danger scale.

The exclusion zone has been extended from two to five kilometres (1.2 to three miles).

A week after the tsunami, thousands of Indonesian Muslims attended a mass prayer on Saturday to remember the victims and pray for the safety of their tsunami-prone hometown.

Residents of Pandeglang regency, which was hit the hardest by the disaster, gathered in the early morning, some in tears as they chanted their prayers.

I prayed for the victims and I also pray for the safety of the people who live in the tsunami affected area,a tsunami survivor said.

My prayer is for the victims to get help and be granted patience and I also pray the government will immediately help us to rebuild, to provide clothes and food, or at least to give us moral support, a survivor said.

Authorities said at least 426 people were killed and 23 missing in the disaster.

Some 7,202 people suffered injuries and nearly 1,300 homes were destroyed after the waves crashed into the coastlines of western Java island and south Sumatra.

More than 40,000 people have been evacuated for fear of another tsunami as Anak Krakatoa continues to rumble.

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.

Krakatoa, or Krakatau, is a volcanic island situated in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung.

The name is also used for the surrounding island group comprising the remnants of a much larger island of three volcanic peaks which were obliterated in a cataclysmic 1883 eruption. The entire edifice is a stratovolcano.

In 1927, a new island, Anak Krakatau, or "Child of Krakatoa", emerged from the caldera formed in 1883. It is the current location of eruptive activity.

The most notable eruptions of Krakatoa culminated in a series of massive explosions over 26–27 August 1883, which were among the most violent volcanic events in recorded history.

With an estimated Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6, the eruption was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT (840 PJ)—about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb (13 to 16 kt) that devastated Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II, and four times the yield of Tsar Bomba (50 Mt), the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated.

The 1883 eruption ejected approximately 25 km3 (6 cubic miles) of rock. The cataclysmic explosion was heard 3,600 km (2,200 mi) away in Alice Springs, as well as on the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, 4,780 km (2,970 mi) to the west.

According to the official records of the Dutch East Indies colony, 165 villages and towns were destroyed near Krakatoa, and 132 were seriously damaged.

At least 36,417 people died, and many more thousands were injured, mostly from the tsunamis that followed the explosion. The eruption destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa.

Eruptions in the area since 1927 have built a new island at the same location, named Anak Krakatau which is Indonesian for "Child of Krakatoa".

Periodic eruptions have continued since, with recent eruptions in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. In late 2011, this island had a radius of roughly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi), and a highest point of about 324 metres (1,063 ft) above sea level, growing 5 metres (16 ft) each year.

In 2017 the height of Anak Krakatau was reported as over 400 metres above sea level. However, due to the recent eruption in December 2018, the height has been reduced to 110 meters (361 ft).

Indonesia has over 130 active volcanoes, the most of any nation. They make up the axis of the Indonesian island arc system produced by northeastward subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate.

A majority of these volcanoes lie along Indonesia's two largest islands, Java and Sumatra. These two islands are separated by the Sunda Strait located at a bend in the axis of the island arc.

Krakatau is directly above the subduction zone of the Eurasian Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate where the plate boundaries make a sharp change of direction, possibly resulting in an unusually weak crust in the region.


Tourism Observer

LION Air Jet With 189 Passengers And Crew On Board Crashes Into Ocean

A LION Air jet has crashed into the ocean after taking off from Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta.

The plane with a seating capacity of 210lost radio contact just 13 minutes into the flight which was headed to Pangkal Pinang, an island east of Sumatra.

The aircraft disappeared near Karawang in West Java province, said Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for the National Search and Rescue Agency confirmed.

Lion Air flight JT610 requested to return to base, with air traffic control losing contact with the pilots after approving the request, Yohanes Sirait, a spokesman for the country’s air navigation authorities said.

A tugboat crew in Karawang has now reported seeing debris of a plane in the water, and a vessel belonging to Indonesia energy firm Pertamina official has reported seeing more debris, including plane seats, near its offshore facility in the Java Sea.

Indonesia transport ministry official says it was carrying 189 people — including two infants and its crew.

Pictures and video released by Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency appear to show personal items including a bag, phone and documentation among suspected debris from the crashed plane.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief, M Syaugi said the agency had already found other debris from the aircraft including mobile phones and buoys.

He said the aircraft lost contact at 34 nautical miles from the Basarnas office in Jakarta and the agency had immediately deployed boats and a helicopter to search.

Once we arrived at the co-ordinates we found aircraft debris, buoys, handphones as well as some other pieces. It was around two nautical miles from the co-ordinates given by air traffic control, Mr Syaugi said.

We are there now, our vessels and helicopter, to give assistance.

The water there is around 30 to 35 metres deep. We are now still trying to dive to find the aircraft. Hopefully the process would not take long.

Friends and relatives prayed and hugged each other as they waited at Pangkal Pinang’s airport.

At the National Search and Rescue Agency headquarters in Jakarta, family members turned up, hoping desperately for news.

We are here to find any information about my younger sister, her fiance, her in-law to be and a friend of them, Feni said.

We don’t have any information, she said, as her father wiped tears from reddened eyes.

No one provided us with any information that we need. We’re confused. We hope that our family is still alive, she said.

Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyanialso arrived at the agency and met with its chief, seeking information about 20 finance ministry staff who were on the flight.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) spokesman, Yusuf Latif, said the aircraft has crashed near Tanjung Karawang in the waters off West Java.

It has crashed in the waters in West Java. Our team has been deployed, Mr Latif said.

The Lion Air plane lost contact with air traffic controllers at 6.33am. Flight JT-610 took off from the Jakarta airport at 6.20am local time and lost contact at 6.33am. The Boeing 737 was originally scheduled to arrive at Pangkal Pinang at 7.20am.

A shipping traffic officer in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, Suyadi, said that he has received a report from a tugboat, AS Jaya II, that the crew had seen a downed plane in Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java.

At 7.15am the tugboat reported it had approached the site and the crew saw the debris of a plane, Suyadi said.

Two other ships, a tanker and a cargo ship, near the location were approaching the site, he said, and a Basarnas rescue boat was also on the way.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief, M Syaugi said the agency had found debris. He said the aircraft lost contact at 34 nautical miles (63km) from the Basarnas office in Jakarta and the agency had immediately deployed boats and a helicopter to search.

Once we arrived at the co-ordinates we found aircraft debris, buoys, handphones as well as some other pieces. It was around two nautical miles (4km) from the co-ordinates given by air traffic control, Mr Syaugi said.

The Flightradar website tracked the plane, showing it looping south on takeoff and then heading north before the flight path ended abruptly over the Java Sea, not far from the coast.

It says final telemetry from the aircraft indicates it was in a rapid descent.

The plane involved was a Boeing Co 737 Max-8 model. The aircraft is believed to be just two months old, and a significantly updated version over older 737 models.

Lion Air said the pilot and co-pilot of the plane had a combined total of 11,000 hours flying time.

Boeing said in a statement it was deeply saddened by the loss of Flight JT 610.

We express our concern for those on board, and extend heartfelt sympathies to their families and loved ones, the statement read.

Boeing stands ready to provide technical assistance to the accident investigation.

Weather is unlikely to have contributed to the accident. There were thunderstorms in the general area, there were none close to where the plane apparently vanished from radar.

The Australian Embassy in Jakarta is making urgent inquiries with local authorities to determine if any Australians were affected, a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman told News Corp.

Indonesian authorities say the 737 was carrying 178 adults, 1 child, two infants, six flight attendants and the captain and co-pilot. Indonesia’s finance ministry says 20 of its officials were among the passengers.

Just six months ago, a Lion Air plane skidded off the runway at Djalaluddin Airport in Gorontalo, Indonesia. None of the 174 passengers and seven crew members suffered injuries, with the incident destroying the plane’s landing gear.

In 2013 a Lion Air jet with a rookie pilot at the controls undershot the runway and crashed into the sea in Bali, splitting the plane in two. Several people were injuredin the crash, although no one was killed.

The last major accident in Indonesia was in December 2014 when AirAsia Indonesia’s Airbus A320 aircraft crashed into the waters after taking off from Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years.

A 12-year-old boy was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed eight people in mountainous eastern Indonesia in August.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.

The European Union banned Lion Air from entering the airspace of any member state in 2006 after being deemed unsafe due to a poor safety record.

The EU lifted the ban in 2016, and in September this year, the International Civil Aviation Organisation gave the airline a top safety ranking.

Global airline rating agency AirlineRatings.com also moved the Indonesia-based carrier to its top safety tier.


Tourism Observer

INDONESIA: Influx Of Tourists In Palembang

Songket traders in Palembang, South Sumatra, have geared up for the influx of foreign tourists during the 18th Asian Games scheduled to be held in the city and Jakarta from Aug 18 to Sept 2.

Zainal Arifin, one of the traders of this traditional woven fabric said that he will attempt to utilize this opportunity of foreign visitor arrivals by making his shop Zainal Songket rank in the top list of South Sumatra`s tourist destinations.

To this end, he will rope in two or three Songket weavers at his shop to enable the visiting foreigners to get a close glimpse of the weaving process of this traditional fabric.

Foreign visitors are expected to develop a greater inclination for this hand-woven fabric than machine-made cloth and that he will employ some 40 Songket weavers at his shop during the Asian Games.

Prior to Asia`s largest multi-sport event, traditional weavers worked from their homes for decades. However, during the Asian Games, they will be stationed at his shop, so they could demonstrate the weaving process to the foreigners, who will be able to commend their work.

They will be proud of what they do when they see many of the foreigners traveling to Palembang for the Asian Games buy songkets, said a trader who also sells other traditional clothing from Palembang, including Jumputan or dotted and floral-motif cloth, noted.

With a shop located on Ki Gede Ing Suro Street of the city, it has widely been known among Songket lovers owing to his consistency in running his business since decades.

For the 18th Asian Games, he has kept in stock some eight thousand pieces of Songket and set the selling price in the range of Rp250 thousand to Rp7.5 million per piece.

The entire pieces of Songket, usually made in silk or cotton, with unique patterns of gold or silver threads, are the works of local weavers residing in Palembang and several districts in South Sumatra, he remarked.

Indonesia will host the Asian Games for the second time this year after Jakarta was selected as the venue for the Asian sporting event for the first time in 1962.

By virtue of its hosting of the 2018 games, the country aims to secure a place among the top 10 largest sporting events.

The games will be attended by 45 countries and will feature 462 events across 40 sports, of which 32 are Olympic sports and eight are non-Olympic events.

The Olympic sports are Aquatics, Athletics, Fencing, Weightlifting, Basketball, Handball, Badminton, Baseball/Softball, Cycling, Equestrian, Golf, Wrestling, Hockey, Judo, Karate, Canoeing and Kayaking, Sailing, Shooting, Modern Pentathlon, Archery, Sport Climbing, Rowing, Rugby, Gymnastics, Roller Skating, Football, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Boxing, Triathlon, and Volleyball.

The non-Olympic sports are Bowling; Bridge; Cricket; Kabaddi; Martial Arts, including Jujitsu, Kurash, Pencak Silat, Sambo, and Wushu; Mechanical Sports, such as Paragliding and Jet skiing; Squash; and Sepak Takraw.

Indonesia has set a target of entering the top 10 in the event by winning a minimum of 16 gold medals.


Tourism Observer

MALAYSIA: Pangolin The World's Most Trafficked Mammal,Trafficked To Malaysia Then Vietnam And China

Last month, within a matter of days, alert customs officials at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport seized two giant hauls of pangolin scales, which had been flown in from Africa and weighed 712kg in total.

This month they discovered yet another giant haul of scales at an air cargo warehouse at KLIA. The scales, which weighted 288kg, had been flown in from Ghana and brought the total amount of scales seized within a month to more than a ton.

The scales had been packed into gunny sacks and stored in 12 boxes, which had been falsely labelled as oyster shells. They would have been worth 3.7 million ringgit ($870,000) on the black market. The Malaysian address given on the airway bill was fake.

And then, a few days later, officials at KLIA discovered yet another shipment of pangolin scales. This time the scales weighed 394kg. They, too, had originated in Accra in Ghana, just as previously.

To sum up: four large shipments of scales within a few short weeks.

These seizures of scales show that the mass slaughter of African pangolins continues unabated. Sadly there's little surprise in that.

Recently, TRAFFIC warned in a report that wildlife traffickers have been switching from Asian pangolins to African ones in an effort to meet unrelenting demand for pangolin scales in countries like Vietnam and China, where they are used for medicinal purposes even though pangolin scales have no known curative properties.

As much as four-fifths of scales that have been traded illegally since 2010 have come from African pangolins, TRAFFIC says.

The anti-poaching group has commended Malaysian authorities on their latest successes in seizing illegal shipments, but added that these same seizures prove that international wildlife trafficking syndicates remain unrelenting and continue to use the country as a transit point with impunity despite stepped-up efforts to eradicate wildlife trafficking.

Malaysian Customs has intercepted an alarming volume of wildlife contraband from Africa since April this year, and for this we congratulate them, Kanitha Krishnasamy, senior program manager for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia, said.

However, multiple shipments comprising of rhino horns, pangolin scales and live Critically Endangered tortoises – all of them listed in CITES Appendix I – entering Malaysia signifies a very worrying pattern; that traffickers feel they can continuously move their contraband through the country.

Malaysian authorities must of course continue to remain perpetually vigilant, as we, too, have urged them on this site. Wildlife experts concur.

We hope this level of enforcement effort will continue, said Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC's regional director in Southeast Asia.

More importantly, he added, investigative work at national and international levels needs to be stepped up to put the perpetrators behind these transactions out of business for good.

Nor is Malaysia the only country in the region where the trafficking of pangolins is endemic. Right about the same time Malaysian authorities discovered those large hauls of scales from Africa, their Indonesian counterparts managed to seize scores of the animals that were still alive, as well as a large amount of scales in nine large sacks.

They did so by raiding a warehouse near a port on Sumatra, where they found 223 live pangolins. Another 24 of the animals had already perished by then and were kept in a freezer so as to preserve their meat, which is prized as a delicacy by some people.

Make no mistake: Catering to that demand is a highly lucrative business. Poachers and traffickers can make a fortune selling the endangered animals. Larger shipments can fetch hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the international black market.

According to Indonesian officials, who arrested two local traffickers, the recently seized haul of pangolins and their scales were bound to be sent over to Malaysia, from where they would likely have been sent on to Vietnam or China.

That's why cross-border intelligence-sharing operations are vital if we are to roll back the extensive networks of wildlife trafficking, which have decimated species like pangolins worldwide.

Poachers and traffickers know no borders and act with brazen disregard for national and international laws. As a result, all eight subspecies of pangolins are now critically endangered and the animals have been dubbed the world's most trafficked mammal.

Their populations have declined by as much as 80% over the past few decades. Pangolins may appear invincible in their scaly armor, which can withstand the bites of predators like tigers, but they are defenseless against poachers' snares and weapons.

They are shy and retiring creatures that spend most of their time curled up in balls within their borrows. They come alive at night when they begin to forage for insects.

Poachers usually trap them by following their distinctive paw prints or by using dogs whose acute sense of smell can locate them with relative ease.

Each year an estimated 100,000 pangolins are poached and trafficked worldwide. Over the past decade as many as 1 million of them have been taken from the wild, driving their populations ever closer to the edge of extinction.

Pangolins once thrived across Asia and Africa and have survived for millions of years. Now they are at death's door in the wild everywhere. And that's simply because many people in countries like Vietnam, China and sadly even Malaysia fancy a bite of their meat or assume that their keratinous scales can cure them of certain ailments. A terrible shame, that.

Human greed and folly are an awful threat to pangolins.

Andaman Sea

The Andaman Sea is a body of water to the southeast of the Bay of Bengal, south of Myanmar (Burma), west of Thailand, north-west of Malay Peninsula, north of Sumatra and east of the Andaman Islands, India, from which it takes its name; it is part of the Indian Ocean.

The sea has been traditionally used for fishery and transportation of goods between the coastal countries and its coral reefs and islands are popular tourist destinations. The fishery and tourist infrastructure was severely damaged by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

At its southeastern reaches, the Andaman Sea narrows to form the Straits of Malacca, which separate the Malay Peninsula from the island of Sumatra.

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the "Andaman or Burma Sea" as follows:

On the Southwest. A line running from Oedjong Raja in Sumatra to Poeloe Bras (BreuEh) and on through the Western Islands of the Nicobar Group to Sandy Point in Little Andaman Island, in such a way that all the narrow waters appertain to the Burma Sea.

On the Northwest. The Eastern limit of the Bay of Bengal [A line running from Cape Negrais in Myanmar through the larger islands of the Andaman group, in such a way that all the narrow waters between the islands lie to the Eastward of the line and are excluded from the Bay of Bengal, as far as a point in Little Andaman Island in latitude 10°48'N, longitude.

On the Southeast. A line joining Lem Voalan (7°47'N) in Siam [Thailand], and Pedropunt (5°40'N) in Sumatra.

The average depth of the sea is about 1,000 meters. The northern and eastern parts are shallower than 180 meters (590 feet) due to the silt deposited by the Irrawaddy River. This major river flows into the sea from the north through Myanmar. The western and central areas are 900–3,000 meters deep (3,000–10,000 ft). Less than 5% of the sea is deeper than 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), and in a system of submarine valleys east of the Andaman-Nicobar Ridge, the depth exceeds 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).The sea floor is covered with pebbles, gravel and sand.

Running in a rough north–south line on the seabed of the Andaman Sea is the boundary between two tectonic plates, the Burma Plate and the Sunda Plate. These plates (or microplates) are believed to have formerly been part of the larger Eurasian Plate, but were formed when transform fault activity intensified as the Indian Plate began its substantive collision with the Eurasian continent. As a result, a back-arc basin center was created, which began to form the marginal basin which would become the Andaman Sea, the current stages of which commenced approximately 3–4 million years ago.

The boundary between two major tectonic plates results in high seismic activity in the region (see List of earthquakes in Indonesia). Numerous earthquakes have been recorded, and at least six, in 1797, 1833, 1861, 2004, 2005 and 2007, had the magnitude of 8.4 or higher. On December 26, 2004, a large portion of the boundary between the Burma Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate slipped, causing the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

This megathrust earthquake had a magnitude of 9.3. Between 1300 and 1600 kilometers of the boundary underwent thrust faulting and shifted by about 20 meters, with the sea floor being uplifted several meters.This rise in the sea floor generated a massive tsunami with an estimated height of 28 meters (92 feet)that killed approximately 280,000 people along the coast of the Indian Ocean.

The initial quake was followed by a series of aftershocks along the arc of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The entire event severely damaged the fishing infrastructure.

Within the sea, to the east of the main Great Andaman island group, lies Barren Island, the only presently active volcano associated with the Indian subcontinent. This island-volcano is 3 km (2 mi) in diameter and rises 354 meters above the sea level. Its recent activity resumed in 1991 after a quiet period of almost 200 years.

It is caused by the ongoing subduction of the India Plate beneath the Andaman island arc, which forces magma to rise in this location of the Burma Plate. The last eruption has started on 13 May 2008 and still continues.The volcanic island of Narcondam which lies further to the north was also formed by this process; however, no records exist of its activity.

The climate and water salinity of the Andaman Sea are mostly determined by the monsoons of southeast Asia. Air temperature is stable over the year at 26 °C in February and 27 °C in August. Precipitation is as high as 3,000 mm/year and mostly occurs in summer. Sea currents are south-easterly and easterly in winter and south-westerly and westerly in summer.

The average surface water temperature is 26–28 °C in February and 29 °C in May. The water temperature is constant at 4.8 °C at the depths of 1,600 m and below. Salinity is 31.5–32.5‰ (parts per thousand) in summer and 30.0–33.0‰ in winter in the southern part. In the northern part, it decreases to 20–25‰ due to the inflow of fresh water from the Irrawaddy River. Tides are semidiurnal (i.e. rising twice a day) with the amplitude of up to 7.2 meters.

The coastal areas of the Andaman Sea are characterized by mangrove forests and seagrass meadows. Mangroves cover between more than 600 km2 (232 sq mi) of the Thai shores of Malay Peninsula whereas seagrass meadows occupy an area of 79 km2 (31 sq mi).

Mangroves are largely responsible for the high productivity of the coastal waters – their roots trap soil and sediment and provide shelter from predators and nursery for fish and small aquatic organisms. Their body protects the shore from the wind and waves, and their detritus are a part of the aquatic food chain.

A significant part of the Thai mangrove forests in the Andaman Sea was removed during the extensive brackish water shrimp. Mangroves were also significantly damaged by the 2004 tsunami. They were partly replanted after that, but their area is still gradually decreasing due to human activities.

Other important sources of nutrients in the Andaman Sea are seagrass and the mud bottoms of lagoons and coastal areas. They also create a habitat or temporal shelter for many burrowing and benthic organisms. Many aquatic species migrate from and to seagrass either daily or at certain stages of their life cycle.

The human activities which damage seagrass beds include waste water discharge from coastal industry, shrimp farms and other forms of coastal development, as well as trawling and the use of push nets and dragnets. The 2004 tsunami affected 3.5% of seagrass areas along the Andaman Sea via siltation and sand sedimentation and 1.5% suffered total habitat loss.

The sea waters along the Malay Peninsula favor molluscan growth, and there are about 280 edible fish species belonging to 75 families. Of those, 232 species (69 families) are found in mangroves and 149 species (51 families) reside in seagrass; so 101 species are common to both habitats.

The sea also hosts many vulnerable fauna species, including dugong (Dugong dugon), several dolphin species, such as Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) and four species of sea turtles: critically endangered leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) and hawksbill turtle (Eletmochelys imbricata) and threatened green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea). There are only about 150 dugongs in the Andaman Sea, scattered between Ranong and Satun Provinces. These species are sensitive to the degradation of seagrass meadows.

Coral reefs are estimated to occupy 73,364 rai in the Andaman Sea with only 6.4 percent in ideal condition.

The sea has long been used for fishing and transportation of goods between the coastal countries. Thailand alone harvested about 943,000 tonnes of fish in 2005 and about 710,000 tonnes in 2000. Of those 710,000 tonnes, 490,000 are accounted for by trawling (1,017 vessels), 184,000 by purse seine (415 vessels), and about 30,000 by gillnets. The production numbers are significantly smaller for Malaysia and are comparable, or higher, for Myanmar.

Competition for fish resulted in numerous conflicts between Myanmar and Thailand. In 1998 and 1999, they resulted in fatalities on both sides and nearly escalated into a military conflict. In both cases, the Thai navy intervened when Burmese vessels tried to intercept Thai fishing boats in the contested sea areas, and Thai fighter aircraft were thought to be deployed by the National Security Council.

Thai fishing boats were also frequently confronted by the Malaysian navy to the extent that the Thai government had to caution its own fishers against fishing without license in foreign waters.

The 2004 marine production in Thailand was composed of: pelagic fish 33%, demersal fish 18%, cephalopod 7.5%, crustaceans 4.5%, trash fish 30% and others 7%.Trash fish refers to non-edible species, edible species of low commercial value and juveniles, which are released to the sea.

Pelagic fishes were distributed between anchovies (Stolephorus spp., 19%), Indo-Pacific mackerel (Rastrelliger brachysoma, 18%), sardinellas (Sardinellars spp., 14%), scad (11%), longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol, 9%), eastern little tuna (Euthynnus affinis, 6%), trevallies (6%), bigeye scad (5%), Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta, 4%), king mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla, 3%), torpedo scad (Megalaspis cordyla , 2%), wolf herrings (1%) and others (2%).Demersal fish production was dominated by purple-spotted bigeye (Priacanthus tayenus), threadfin bream (Nemipterus hexodon), brushtooth lizardfish (Saurida undosquamis), slender lizardfish (Saurida elongata) and Jinga shrimp (Metapenaeus affinis).

Most species are overfished since the 1970s–1990s, except for Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commersoni), carangidae and torpedo scad (Meggalaspis spp.). The overall overfishing rate was 333% for pelagic and 245% for demersal species in 1991.Cephalopods are divided into squid, cuttlefish and molluscs, where squid and cuttlefish in Thai waters consists of 10 families, 17 genera and over 30 species.

The main mollusk species captured in the Andaman Sea are scallop, blood cockle (Anadara granosa) and short-necked clam. Their collection requires bottom dredge gears, which damage the sea floor and the gears themselves and are becoming unpopular. So, the mollusk production has decreased from 27,374 tonnes in 1999 to 318 tonnes in 2004. While crustaceans composed only 4.5% of the total marine products in 2004 by volume, they accounted for 21% of the total value.

They were dominated by banana prawn, tiger prawn, king prawn, school prawn, bay lobster (Thenus orientalis), mantis shrimp, swimming crabs and mud crabs. The total catch in 2004 was 51,607 tonnes for squid and cuttlefish and 36,071 tonnes for crustaceans.

The sea’s mineral resources include tin deposits off the coasts of Malaysia and Thailand. Major ports are Dawei, Mawlamyine, Mergui, Pathein and Yangon in Myanmar; George Town and Penang in Malaysia; and Belawan in Indonesia.

The Andaman Sea, particularly the western coast of the Malay Peninsula, is rich in coral reefs and offshore islands with spectacular topography, such as Phuket, Phi Phi Islands, Ko Tapu and islands of Krabi Province. Despite having been devastated by the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, they remain popular tourist destinations.

The nearby coast also has numerous marine national parks – 16 only in Thailand, and four of them are candidates for inclusion into UNESCO World Heritage Sites.