JAKARTA, Saco- Indonesia.com - Data Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana menunjukkan, bencana hidrometeorologi yang didominasi banjir selama Januari-Mei 2013 menewaskan 252 jiwa. Sementara itu, berdasarkan data Walhi, dalam periode sama tercatat 348 orang meninggal.

”Data BNPB itu bersifat sementara. Sesuai pengalaman, hasil penghitungan pada akhir tahun jumlahnya bisa tiga kali lipatnya,” kata Kepala Pusat Data, Informasi, dan Humas BNPB Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, Senin (3/6/2013), di Jakarta.

Menurut Sutopo, terdapat 573 kejadian bencana di seluruh Indonesia. Hampir 95 persennya bencana hidrometeorologi banjir, longsor, puting beliung, dan gelombang tinggi.

Korban terdampak dan mengungsi 512.080 orang, 30.525 rumah rusak, dan puluhan fasilitas umum seperti sekolah dan rumah ibadah rusak. Banjir mendominasi, dari 573 kejadian, ada 212 banjir, 195 puting beliung, dan 138 longsor. Tanah longsor menyebabkan kematian paling banyak, yaitu 115 orang. Lalu, banjir 94 orang.

Manajer Penanganan Bencana Walhi Mukri Friatna mengungkapkan, bencana hidrometeorologi tahun 2013 diperkirakan lebih besar dibandingkan dengan tahun sebelumnya. Dari 34 provinsi, tak satu pun bebas dari bencana hidrometeorologi.

”Walhi mendorong pemerintah berani menyatakan bahwa banyaknya bencana hidrometeorologi akibat kerusakan lingkungan, ulah manusia. Bukan hanya karena curah hujan ekstrem,” kata Mukri.

Data Walhi, lima bulan terakhir ada 776 bencana melanda 3.846 desa/kelurahan di 1.584 kecamatan dan 311 kabupaten/kota. Sebanyak 348 orang meninggal, 44 di antaranya karena pertambangan. Namun, banjir mendominasi (579), kemudian longsor (129), banjir rob (36), dan lainnya.

Bencana dalam pendekatan regional, di Sumatera tersering di Aceh, 44 kali bencana. Di Jawa, terbanyak di Jawa Timur (90). Di Kalimantan, bencana terbanyak di Kalimantan Selatan (13). Di Sulawesi, bencana terbanyak di Sulawesi Selatan (22). Di regional Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, dan Papua, bencana terbanyak di NTT (30). (NAW)

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.