Pictures From The Earthquake Zone

Pictures From The Earthquake Zone

http://news.msn.co.nz/slideshowajax/149281/6-3-earthquake-hits-christchurch.slideshow

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February 22, 2011, 1.51pm Story From the Earthquake Zone II

Photos credit to Nick Maley

February 22, 2011, 1.51pm.
I was just getting out of the house and felt the earth shook. Looking around I saw the power lines and the power poles shook violently. The trees were shaking, deep in the ground, a rumbling sound, loud and scary. I walked a few more feet before falling on all four. Oh that was a huge earthquake I thought.
I immediately ran back inside the house, checking everything is okay. Then there was another earthquake of a lesser magnitude. I have to tell the world, power still on, so I turn on my computer and updated my status. That was at least a 6+ on the Richter scale. In the meantime, my wife went down to school down the road to check on our kids. Apparently the school was sending the children home, no more class for the day. Checking on the neighbours looks like our neighbourhood not badly affected.
Ambulance and fire rescue sirens were heard everywhere. I grabbed my camera, and got on my bike to check on my neighbourhood. The road was jammed, made worse by dead traffic light. People are leaving the city centre in their cars. Papanui was quiet, the mall already closed, well at least it is still intact. All businesses, banks and offices already evacuated and closed. The road to Merivale is badly damaged, by liquefaction and flooding. Grey fine sand oozed out of the ground by the roadsides and in the middle of the road. Some part of the road was heaved up while lower sections were flooded. Liquifaction brings out a lot of ground water and sand from underground. It’s like a few inches of rain in a few seconds. Fields flooded like a lake, streams and drains are deep in water.
Few older houses lost their heavy walls and chimneys. I saw an old house next to St Andrews College that has its entire roof collapsed, heavy tile roof. If the last earthquake the top section of chimney fallen to the ground, this time I saw the whole section of chimney fallen to the ground. Signs of liquefaction was everywhere, car parks was flooded, with mounds of white sand all over the place. In the middle of Merivale a section of concrete facade has fallen down blocking the main road. Citizens and bank workers donned orange vests and directing traffic. At Merivale I saw hordes of people walking from the centre of town, looking sombre, on twos or threes, carrying their handbags and luggage. Like scene from Sept 11, a lifetime ago.
I went as far as Bealey Avenue, and as I expected the city block is cordoned off. I was at the roadside near Southern Cross Hospital when I felt the ground rolled and saw dust billowing from a building 100 meters away. Another big earthquake! That was 2.50pm, two hours after the first one, with countless of smaller ones in between. Bealey Ave was gridlocked, and still hundreds of people are leaving on foot from the central business district.
I cycled back home, my battery gone flat. Cranford St was flooded. I have seen more citizens donning reflective jacket and directing the traffic at intersections.
An old gentleman shouted at me, “Sir, what do you think of shaky Christchurch?” Poignant moments. At the end of Cranford St I met Steven MacDonald, a colleague from years back at Hotel Grand Chancellor. He walked home from the hotel, still in uniform.
“Good to be alive!” he said. “The hotel was shaking so bad it almost falling down. Some housekeepers didn’t make it out of the hotel. “ he continued.

That Witch, Inflation Eats Our Earnings Away

Title: That Witch, Inflation Eats Our Earnings Away
Raj Patel of guardian.co.uk wrote this article about inflation. Yes we can blame external shocks, mainly high fuel and commodities prices, oil, coal, grains etc. Natural disasters that affect production of food and commodities are also to blame. Increased affluence in some countries also stokes the demand for food, hence stoking inflation.
China, India, ASEAN countries and Brazil have become more affluent lately, and the first thing people spend more when they are richer, is more quality food, clothing and housing, which translates to more demand on commodities.
I agree with Mr Patel and the World Bank that freer market helps lower prices in urban areas, whatever that cannot be produced locally at a competitive and cheap price, can be imported. But that would kill off local production, contributing to a higher price of the said produce in the future. Well designed public feeding and public works programmes gives people jobs, but this requires government spending which is inflationary.
In the short term, government and policy makers has to accept that commodity prices will stay high. Hence government must handle this issue of feeding the people and fair distribution of food. Hence well designed programme that feed the poor and hungry is necessary, even if that will mean higher government spending. Food grant and welfare payment for the poor and also public works programmes that will provide jobs. A content population would less likely to stir unrest. Yes it is inflationary.
In the medium term, investment must be made in food and commodity production, food doesn’t grow in an instant, land must be plough first before seeds planted. Infrastructure for farming has to be built. Without these new investments in food production, food production cannot increase and cannot meet increased demand.
What is more important, the country’s economic structure must be rearranged, more focus on food and commodity production as a larger portion in GNP. It is all well that the country has been steadily increasing industrial and service sector production to earn higher and higher incomes, but this has been at the expense of agricultural production which feeds the populace. So it’s no surprise that food prices have been steadily increasing. This call for new government policies that encourage food production, as well as incentives that encourage food production.
Look at Tunisia lately, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/28/tunisia-ben-ali,
1. High youth unemployment, and high unemployment overall.
2. 1 in 40 adult male is a policeman, which translate to high proportion government servant.
3. The economy has high proportion in service sector, ie resorts, hotels that cater for European tourists.
So the seeds of Tunisian discontent can be summarised in high food prices, unemployment and envy of wealth. What are worse the ruling elite displays their wealth, ill-gotten or not.
If we learn anything from this, we must handle these issues of unemployment, inflation, high food prices and unfair distribution of income immediately.

Story for My Mother: Lindu

When I was young, growing up in a village we did experience earthquake, very rarely. Even then it was normally Indonesian earthquake that we felt. My late father explained to me that deep underground, there is a big animal kind of being, it is asleep all the time, waiting for the day at the end of time, when it will get up and move about. That will be the end of time, Qiamat. When this animal moves, the earth surface will also move, the mountains and hills will fly like cloud. Earthquake or lindu (earthquake in Javanese language) happened because the animal moves a little bit in its sleep. You see, before the end of time, God forbids this animal from moving even a little bit, and God assigned angels to take care of this animal, ie the angel’s duty is to forbid this animal from moving one bit.
But from time to time, this animal sneezed and move in its sleep. Hence the earthquakes. If you think this earthquakes are bad and terrifying, wait until the day of Qiamat, the End of Time. That day the mountains, hills, and trees will fly like dust and feather. You will regret that never believe in the End of Days. Your repentance that day will be useless. Your regret of your past misdeeds and mischief will not be accepted by God Almighty.
Now before you start jumping up and down and say that the continents of the earth is floating on molten hot rocks, continental drift and the subduction of the edge of tectonic plates that cause earthquakes, yeah I know that.
I suppose if you think of it, we wouldn’t know how the earth would behave, and as we know that the continents are moving like cloud, creating pressure at the subduction zone. What if there is an increased activity at the centre of the earth? The molten part flow faster, which would cause the continents drift faster. And then earthquakes occur frequently to release the build up pressure. Can we predict earthquakes? No.
Everything that has happened and will happen is already written in the Loh Mahfuz.
75. And there is nothing hidden in the heaven and the earth, but is in a Clear Book (i.e. Al-Lauh Al-Mahfûz).

In Memory of My Father; Hamzah Kusni 1933-2008

In Memory of My Father; Hamzah Kusni 1933-2008
As far as I remember, from the old days, my late father never had much clothing to his name. One pair of old work trousers and shirt, which were of rag quality and had patches, and about two pairs of normal trousers and shirts which he normally wore to market or kenduris. He didn’t have much in line of clothing, when his normal clothes wore out, he would wear it to work. No, my father didn’t need to wear fancy clothes for work. His work was mainly plucking down coconut from coconut tree, using 2-3 long stick of bamboo tied together, with a curved knife at the top end. Coconut tree is usually 20-40 feet high, thus a specialized job.
What else in the line of clothing that my father had? One or two kain pelikat, a songkok and a hat. Songkok is a kind of headwear that he normally wore for prayers, and to the mosque. He wore the hat at work, and to the market. Considering the type of job he did, a pith helmet was more appropriate, I think.
The late Ustadz Ashaari once told us that those people who had nothing much will have easier time during the Counting Time. For each and every thing that we ever owned, we will be asked....
Allah knows, I have way, way too many belongings.

Thanking you in advance for reciting AlFatihah for the benefit of my late father..

pictures from my garden

lettuce for salad anyone? come over..


Amaranth, Mekong Red..or bayam merah.

this one will ripe soon, yum.


pegaga...dulu kat kampung punyalah banyak..