JAKARTA, Oct 7 – Parents of the 238 Malaysian medical students at Universiti Udhayana, Bali, have been advised to remain calm as SMS messages that Bali will be hit by a strong earthquake today are mere rumours already denied by Indonesian authorities.
Malaysia Students Department (MSD) director in Indonesia, Dr Junaidi Abu Bakar urged parents who received telephone calls or SMS messages from their children in Bali to remain calm as the Indonesian Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Organisation said that earthquakes could not be predicted.
“I have received confirmation from our students in Bali that they are only rumours. The university had mistakenly asked all the students to gather in a field at noon,” he told Bernama today.
The SMS messages reported by the media here also prompted two schools in East Java to send students home while several factories were also closed.
The fear followed the strong (magnitude 7.6) at Padang, West Sumatra on Sept 30 which also affected more than 300 Malaysian students there.
Junaidi said MSD, via a network of Malaysian student associations in Indonesia had a standard procedure in facing disasters where they would contact friends, gather at designated locations and inform the embassy here.
“With the standard procedure, the situation of Malaysian students in Padang could be relayed fast so that aid and evacuation to Malaysia can be undertaken,” he said. – Bernama
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