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Land of sun, smiles, tsunamis and suicide
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Darkest hours: An aerial photograph taken from a Smart Aviation-owned Cessna 208 Caravan shows Palu, the capital city of Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday evening, five days after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the region, causing blackouts. (The Jakarta Post/Dhoni Setiawan )
I
ndonesia is a land of sun and smiles. That’s what they say in the travel brochures, and fortunately it’s true enough — there is sun all year round!
And obviously smiles sell more than tsunamis and earthquakes, which has been devastatingly clear from the recent disasters on the island of Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, and in Palu, Central Sulawesi, taking the lives of 555 and over 2,000 respectively, and a suspected 5,000 more trapped under the rubble.
The downside of living on the equator and getting sunshine all year round is the potential disaster that could strike any time for being located on the volatile “ring of fire”.
What is surprising, considering that we smile so much, is the high suicide rate in Indonesia. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2014 and 2017, there have been 50,000 suicides, so, about 46 daily.
