Disaster Again:
Old Perspective Still Persist!

NATIONAL BILL No.24/2007 NOT SERIOUSLY IMPLEMENTED

Ahmad Mahmudi stated his judgement by pointing out the fact of the fast widespread of disaster areas which were not completed with any proper anticipation from the local governments. According to his opinion, soon after the major flood and massive landslide taking place in the Surakarta area, in mid of December 2007, other governments which are located in the same line, especially along the stream of Bengawan Solo River and surrounding, should have been conducted a quick emergency response. In fact, the flood widespread to other several regencies in East Java such as in Bojonegoro, Ngawi, Kediri, which were almost without any preparation to face the coming disaster. The victims evacuations were almost all conducted after the disaster happened.

“Luckily”, Mahmudi said, “the flood came gradually instead of coming as a stream of massive water in a high speed. Most of the disaster areas were a little bit helped by their geographical condition which in general is flat. I just returned from Sinjai Regency in South Sulawesi. There was a village located in the middle of a valley and totally swept by a landslide and a flood coming to the place. You can imagine if such thing happens here”. To his opinion, the emergency responses of most of the local governments in the affected areas are still weak. National Bill No. 24/2007 on Disaster is not practically implemented in a serious and total way. The bill, which emphasizes more on the importance of preventive actions rather than the reactive ones, is not fully well comprehended by many local governments. The same situation is also found in many areas such as in South East Maluku Regency (read the next report below).

From the field experiences of Humanitarian Voluntary Workers organized by LPTP to assist the victims in several villages of Surakarta, Mahmudi evaluated that the government of Klaten Regency was more ready and better in anticipating the disaster. For example, the victim evacuation was conducted right after there were signs of flood. The people in the risky areas were soon evacuated when the news of flood and landslide taking place in Sragen was heard. The damage caused by the disaster in Klaten was less compared to the other effected areas. “Possibly", Mahmudi continued, "it is because Klaten really learns from the devastating earthquake occurred in 2006, so they are more aware now. Yet, should it be a disaster striking first to be ready to face another disaster? If it is so, it can be concluded that there is no attitude change towards disasters as formulated in the National Bill No. 24/2007”.

ACTIVITIES of LPTP HUMANITARIAN VOLUNTARY WORKERS

Until January 8 2007, the Humanitarian Voluntary Workers of LPTP had served the flood and landslide victims in 12 villages in the regencies of Sukoharjo, Sragen, Karanganyar, Wonogiri, and Solo town. They have distributed stuffs collected spontaneously from the local residents. The amount was very limited, they were: 480 pieces of plastic tents; 1000 pieces of sarong; 250 mats; 299 packages of books and school utensils for children; 119 packages of women stuffs such as sanitary napkins; 3 big boxes of clothes; and 1 big bag of foodstuff.

“We, indeed, do not do a massive aid mobilisation”, Rohadi, the Director of Sustainable Development Program (SUSDEC) of LPTP and the Coordinator of INSIST's Humanitarian Team explained. “We collect what we can collect quickly and distribute it directly. It is, indeed, a pure emergency response. Even, we still use some of the remaining operational fund and utensils of INSIST's Humanitarian Team from the earthquake disaster two years ago in Yogyakarta and Klaten areas. The reason is that this time we want to focus our attention more on observing the development of emergency response systems of the local government, whether it is working or not.”

The truck of INSIST's Humanitarian Team (the picture above: unloading aid stuff in Sragen area), donated by PIPA Slovakia two years ago for an emergency aid in earthquake affected areas in Yogyakarta and Klaten, still functions well and is now being used by LPTP's volunteers in the disaster areas in Central Java.

A Report from Kei Islands
DO NOT KNOW or DO NOT CARE?

"I think, the people on those small islands were fine", answered the Vice Regent of South East Maluku, November 24 2007 in his office in Tual town, when he was asked by the Disaster Assessment Team from INSIST and Nen Mas Il Foundation --a member of INSIST based in Langgur town-- about the disaster striking possibilities in the area, especially on several small islands offshore the west coast of Kei Kecil Island, in the middle of Banda Sea. Even, the second important person in South East Maluku acknowledged that he had no idea on the National Bill No. 24/2007 on Disaster with its numerable implications towards their local administration.

"How could you say that?", Saleh Abdullah, the Secretary of INSIST's Board of Executives and the leader of the team, was astonished. Indeed, it was an astonishing answer. The reason that it has been widely known that Kei --and Maluku Islands in genereal-- is precisely in one of the world's most vulnerable areas for natural disaster. The islands, consisting almost a hundred of small islands, is just few nautical miles from the edge of a meeting line of two earth plates (the Eurasia and Indo-Australia) in the eastern offshore of Kei Besar Island (the red line on the map) and is just several nautical miles from several seabed active volcanoes in the western offshore (the yellow spots on the map). Data from the Meteorology and Geophysics Department shows that during the past five years, there have been more than 10 times of tectonic earthquake with magnitude of higher than 5,5 Richter Scale (potential of causing tsunami) striking the area which spread from Banda Sea, Arafura, Seram to Papua mainland (check the list below).

• October 10 2002, in Papua -- 7,6 Richter Scale (RS)
• May 26 2003, in Halmahera -- 7,0 RS
• January 28 2004, in Seram -- 6,7 RS
• February 05 2004, in Papua -- 7,0 RS
• February 07 2004, in Papua -- 7,3 RS
• November 26 2004, in Papua -- 7,1 RS
• March 02 2005, in Banda Sea -- 7,1 RS
• Januari 27 2006, in Banda Sea -- 7,6 RS
• March 14 2006, in Seram -- 6,7 RS
• July 2007, in Tual and its surroundings -- 6,7 RS

The witnesses from many people in the west coast of Kei Kecil showed that beside the raising of the sea level in 1998 due to the El Nino, it had occurred a similar phenomenon, even bigger, including the cracking of parts of Tanimbar Kei Island in 1940s and 1960s. Since the previous year, local fishermen have also stated on the emergence of a small island (the peak of a new seabed volcano?) --which is 4 meters height above the sea level now (the red dot in the aerial photo below) -- in front of Tayando Island. Moreover, in the past first week of 2008, a giant wave destroyed around 27 houses in one village along the gulf of Surbay.

Arbitrary answer of the Vice Regent of South East Maluku --he is, actually, the Chairperson of the Disaster Preventing Board of the regency-- representing the real attitude and opinion of the local bureaucrats and politicians. It is really unbelievable if they dont know the vulnerable position of Kei Islands towards natural disasters. The most reason is they dont care about it. A staff of the District Office of Agriculture --who is leading an on-going project to develop local capacities in food security as an integrated part of disaster management scheme-- acclaimed that his project totally depend on the national budget, no supports from the District's Annual Development Budget that should contributes 20% of total project's expenses.

So, what is really concerns of those local bureaucrats and politicians? "Election!", Saleh Abdullah firmly concluded. Almost of them now are very busy for the election of new Regent and Vice Regent which is planned in the next August 2008. The present Vice Regent is one of the candidates. Their own power interest is more important for them rather than people's safety.

OTHER ASSESSMENTS. Beside the disaster area in Central Jawa and Kei Islands, INSIST Team have also accomplished similar surveys in Flores (East Nusa Tenggara), Sinjai (South Sulawesi), Buton and Wakatobi Islands (Southeast Sulawesi), and Northern Bengkulu in Sumatera Island. The complete reports of those surveys will be discussed in a seminar and workshop on Februari 16-19, 2008. It was initially planned to hold the seminar and workshop on January 9-11 but, then, postponed for almost of the participants from those areas have facing transportation problem due to the bad weather since December 2007. As well as the INSIST-LPTP Team in Central Jawa, some of them immediately involved in emergency responses as an impact of that bad weather. All of these activities is a cooperation of INSIST and CORDAID Netherlands to formulate a comprehensive framework of 'Community-based Disaster's Risks Reduction '.