SEMARANG  The Ahmad Yani airport in Semarang, central Java, was forced to close down earlier on Tuesday. The runway of the airport was partially flooded with water up to ten centimeters. This caused the disruption of flights from and to the airport. The flights were diverted to the airport of Adi Sumarmo in Solo, also in central Java.

The runway was flooded over a length of 300 meters. The total length of the runway is 1.300 meters. Because the water doesn’t seem to recede, the airport operator has ordered the arrival of pumps to clean the runway as soon as possible. The airport should be opened again somewhere in the afternoon.

BANDA ACEH  A strong 7.5-magnitude quake struck Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday, triggering mass panic here and sparking tsunami alerts locally and in Thailand, officials and residents said. There were no immediate reports of damage. The US Geological Survey said the undersea quake struck at 3:08 pm (0808 GMT) some 312 kilometres west-southwest of the North Sumatra capital Medan, at a depth of 34 kilometres.

Read Details »