INDONESIAN EARTHQUAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT AFTER THE 2004 INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE INTRODUCTION

INDONESIAN EARTHQUAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT

AFTER THE 2004 INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE

Author:

Adhi Yudha Mulia1

1Master Student, Disaster Management Programme,

National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Indonesia is a disaster prone country, with earthquake and its collateral hazards

becomes the deadliest ones. Indonesia has long history of earthquake disasters,

nearly almost in all part of the country, but during period of Dutch colonization

and nearly 60 years after its independence, no significant improvement on

disaster management, since almost no policy on it. The 2004 Indian Ocean

Earthquake has changed the paradigm of disaster management in Indonesia. The

PAR Models are used to explain about the changes in disaster management

before and after the earthquake. Several earthquake disaster management

activities have reduced disaster risk. But, since its dynamic characteristics, future

challenges exist and need to be resolved, such as more various disasters,

tendency to forget, overlapping and lack of coordination, and corruption. Some

actions are proposed to overcome the challenges that might occur. They are: 1)

education on disaster for all levels of community; 2) dissemination on standards,

codes and regulations; 3) coordination between related stakeholders; 4)

promoting technology on disaster management; 5) international cooperation

with other earthquake prone countries; 6) community involvement (community

based disaster management); and 7) supervisory system and law enforcement.

Finally, the disaster management needs to be continuously implemented and

improved since it always changes over time. Commitment and coordination

between stakeholders are important so that the actions can be implemented as

reduce disaster risk in the future, and to keep the actions on track, supervisory

and law enforcement is a must.

Keywords: Earthquake, Disaster Management, PAR Model, Indian Ocean

Earthquake

Indonesian Earthquake Disaster Management after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake | 2

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is a disaster prone country with many types of disaster occurred during

its history. Disaster caused by natural hazards, such as flood, earthquake, landslide and

eruption, man-made disaster and social disaster have happened in Indonesia for the

last 2 (two) centuries as seen in figure 1.a. Among those disasters, earthquake is the

most deadly ones (figure 1.b) since it could induce collaterral disaster, such as tsunami,

landslides and fire. The distribution of disaster events is not evenly spread, with most

events occurred in Java and Sumatera as seen in figure 3 (BNPB, 2013). It is possible

since more than 78% of population inhabits these islands.

Figure 1.a) Percentage of Disaster in Indonesia (1815-2013);

1.b) Disaster Casualties (1815-2013)

(Source: http//dibi.bnpb.go.id, 2013)

a) b)

Figure 2. Distribution of Disaster in Indonesia (1815-2013)

(Source: http//dibi.bnpb.go.id, 2013)


Indonesian archipelago lies in the boundaries of 3 (three) tectonic plates, which are

Indo-Australian plate, Eurasian plate and Pacific Plate as shown in figure 4. These

plates, combined with inland fault lines, are actively moved and triggered large number

of earthquake in the past. It is estimated that more than 48,000 earthquake with

magnitude > 4.0 occurred in this region from 1779 to 2010 (Putra, et.al, 2012). Several

earthquake that triggered disasters and caused major destructions and fatalities are

listed on table 1.

As listed in table 1, almost all part of Indonesia experienced earthquake hazards

which led into disasters. The only area which is free of earthquake event is Kalimantan

Island. The records of earthquake event in the past is very poor since Indonesia was

colonized by Dutch and population is not as large as present that earthquake events did

not lead into disasters. But present research and technology shows that earthquake

occurred in both western and eastern part of Indonesia.

The series of earthquake disaster increased significantly in 2000’s and culminated

in the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake which then followed by Yogyakarta Earthquake

in less than 2 years after. It becomes turning point for disaster management activities

in Indonesia, especially earthquake. This paper explains the change of earthquake

disaster management before and after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake using PAR

model and proposes actions to reduce disaster risk.

PACIFIC PLATE

INDO-AUSTRALIAN

PLATE

EURASIAN PLATE

Philippines Plate

Figure 3. Tectonic plate boundaries in Indonesia


Table 1. List of Earthquake Disasters in Indonesia (1797 – 2013)

Year Epicenter Magnitude Fatalities Collateral

Hazard(s)

1797 Sumatera (near present-day Padang,

West Sumatera) 8.4 N/A Tsunami

1833 Sumatera (near present-day Bengkulu) 8.8 N/A Tsunami

1861 Sumatra (near Nias Island) 8.5 N/A Tsunami

1917 Bali Island 6.6 1,500

(estimation) Landslides

1935 Sumatera (south of Nias Island) 7.7 N/A Minor Tsunami

1938 Banda Sea 8.5 N/A Tsunami

1943 Alahan Panjang, Sumatera 7.5 N/A -

1965 Sanana Island, Maluku 8.2 71 Tsunami

1976 Jayawijaya, Papua (formerly Irian

Jaya) 7.1

+ 350 directly

caused by EQ;

5,000 missing

Landslides

1981 Jayawijaya, Papua (formerly Irian

Jaya) 6.8

305; 1,000

missing

(unconfirmed)

Landslides

1982 Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara 5.9 13 Landslides,

Minor Tsunami

1992 Near Maumere, Flores, East Nusa

Tenggara 7.8 2,500 Tsunami

1994 Liwa, Lampung, Sumatera 7 207 Landslides

1994 Southern coast of East Java 7.8 > 200 Tsunami

1996 Biak, Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) 8.1 108 Tsunami

2000 Southern coast of Sumatra (near

Bengkulu) 7.9 103 -

2002 Northern Sumatera (near Simeulue

Island) 7.3 3 -

2004 Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara 7.5 34 -

2004 Nabire, Papua 7.1 32 Landslides

2004 Indian Ocean (off-coast of Aceh)

Sumatera 9.2 > 200,000 Tsunami

2005 Northern Sumatra (near Nias Island) 8.6 1,313

Minor Tsunami,

building

collapsed due to

damage from

26/12/2004 EQ

2006 Southern coast of Yogyakarta, Java 6.3 5,862 (as per

June 6, 2006) -


Year Epicenter Magnitude Fatalities Collateral

Hazard(s)

2006 Southern coast of West Java, Java 7.7 668; 65 missing Tsunami

2007 Near Solok, West Sumatera 6.4 68 -

2007 Off coast of Bengkulu, Sumatera 8.5 23 -

2008 Minahasa, northern Sulawesi 7.3 4 -

2009 Manokwari, West Papua 7.6 4 -

2009 Talaud Islands, North Sulawesi 7.2

64 injured; 600

damaged

buildings

-

2009 Off-coast of Tasikmalaya, West Java 7 79 -

2009 Off-coast of Padang, West Sumatera 7.6 1,117 Landslides

2010 Near Serui, Papua 7 17

2010 Near Mentawai Island, West Sumatera 7.7 435 Tsunami

2013 Aceh, Sumatera 6.1 38 Landslides

THE 2004 INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE

The Indian Ocean Earthquake occurred in Sunday morning of December 26, 2004

is stated as national disaster level and caused more than 220,000 fatalities worldwide.

It triggered tsunami wave that hit the coastal area of Aceh and North Sumatera

Province in Indonesia and several countries in Asia and Africa. The magnitude of

earthquake is 9.1 Mw (USGS, 2012).

The death casualties in Aceh Province are 166,671 persons, 6,244 persons are

missing, while nearly 450,000 persons needed to be evacuated (BNPB, as per 2012).

After the disaster, national government declared President’s Instruction number

1/2005 which to manage disaster response activities and to plan reconstruction and

rehabilitation due to earthquake and tsunami in Aceh and Nias Island. There were 3

(three) stages for post disaster management, which were:

a. Response Stage (January 2005 – March 2005), with focus on search and rescue

activities and human relief distribution;

b. Rehabilitation Stage (April 2005 – December 2006), with focus on rebuilt and

restore the function of basic infrastructures and public facilities;

c. Reconstruction Stage (July 2005 – December 2009), with focus on reconstruct the

rural and urban area with involving related stakeholders (community, local

government, academician, etc.)

The government established 2 (two) ad hoc executing agency to manage above

activities, which were Special Coordinating and Executing Team for Disaster Relief


and Refugees (Indonesian abbreviation: Satkorlak PBP), and Executing Agency for

Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias Island (Indonesian abbreviation:

BRR). To support the agencies, the Government of Indonesia provided fund which

derived from annual budget which would be managed and distributed to local

governments (province and cities/ districts). In 2005, the budget for rehabilitation and

reconstruction reeached 840 million US dollar.

Besides annual budget, the rehabilitation and reconstruction activities were also

supported by international communities. International aid agencies (JICA, USAID,

AusAID, etc.), international donors (World Bank, ADB, etc.) and donating countries

committed to support the rehabilitation and reconstruction process of the devastated

area. In total, there was 3,1 billion US dollar of commitment which would then be

implemented as rehabilitation and reconstruction projects in Aceh. Some of the

projects are to rebuild people’s housing, to build tsunami early warning system in

western coast of Sumatera and to modernize seismic record equipments.

INDONESIA’S DISASTER VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS

Vulnerability analysis is then conducted using Pressure and Release (PAR) Model

developed by Wisner, et.al. (2004). In this model, the vulnerability factors were

divided into three major groups: root causes, dynamic pressure and unsafe conditions.

The unsafe conditions which changed earthquake hazards into disasters are

explained as follow:

1. Vulnerable buildings and housing

The 2006 Yogyakarta Earthquake and 2009 Padang Earthquake caused vast

destruction on buildings due to shaking. More than 200,000 buildings and housing

were damaged to collapsed in 2006 while nearly 280,000 buildings and housing

during 2009 Padang Earthquake. It caused the number of fatalities are large in both

earthquakes. Eventhough the earthquake resistant design code has been introduced

since 1966 and revised in 1970, 1983 and 1989, the implementation is poor,

especially for the low rise buildings and housing. Lack of knowledge on design

and construction stages for those type of buildings is the main reason since they

were designed and/ or constructed by local community, local workmans or

unqualified constructors. Lack of supervision and law enforcement were also main

reason for the larger buildings to be heavily damaged or collapsed during

earthquake. Economic reason and complicated bureaucracy for building permits

were also main reasons for the local people not to built their houses accordingly.

To overcome the above issues, government through the Ministry of Public Works

formulate the revision on earthquake resistant building code and officially

launched it in 2012 with considering the latest earthquakes. This code is mandatory

for any type of buildings. It began to be disseminated since 2010 by researchers

and academicians throughout Indonesia to overcome knowledge gap between


engineers and designers in Indonesia. It is also disseminated to local governments

as building authorities which

2. Poverty and low income population.

Poverty in Indonesia has decreased in the last 40 years as can be seen in figure 4.

But in total, the number is relatively high with more than 28 million people lives

in poverty (11.47% of total population). It is also concentrated in Java (15.5

million) and Sumatera (6.2 million). This number is vulnerable to increase due to

social and economic crisis such as in the end of 1990’s. Indonesia is also

categorized as medium development country with Human Development Index

(HDI) 0.629 (ranks 121 of 187 countries) (UNDP, 2013).

Recently, the middle income population are significantly increased as indicated by

the increasing income per capita, where the income per capita in 2012 is 5 times

higher than in 2000 (BPS, 2013). But this population is vulnerable with economic

issues, such as increasing price of fuel and daily needs.

3. Uneven distribution of population and gap on social services.

Indonesia is the 4th most populated country in the world with population

237,641,326 (based on 2010 census). However, more than 78% of population are

concentrated in Java and Sumatera, and made them vulnerable to disaster (see

figure 5). As a consequences the people in Java and some part of Sumatera have

better access to social services, such as education and health, since the economic

and infrastructure development was focused in Java and some part of Sumatera.

Since the political reform in 1998, some policies have been made for better social

welfare distribution, such as decentralization and development acceleration for

underdeveloped area. The land use planning which considers seismic hazard map

have been made by regional and local governments. However, the implementation

is still inadequate due to lack of budget to relocate the vulnerable people to the

safer area.

4. Lack of earthquake disaster mitigation

The policy of disaster management before the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake was

focused on disaster response. It made the efforts on disaster mitigation was not

improved. Relatively small budget allocated for the mitigation activities.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, the government changed its paradigm

and focused on disaster risk reduction by increasing disaster mitigation activities.

It is then strengthen with the establishment of Law no. 24/2007 on Disaster

Management . As a result, almost all the ministries and government agencies have

disaster mitigation activities on their annual programmes. It consequences on the

increasing budget on disaster mitigation activities. National Disaster Management

Agency (Indonesian abbreviation: BNPB) was established in 2008 to formulate the

policy on disaster management and to coordinate the activities related to disaster

management.


5. Lack of people’s knowledge and awareness on disaster.

Though several devastated earthquake had happened in the past, the people’s

knowledge and awareness were not improved since no disaster management issue

was given in the formal education system. Some memorials had been built to

remember the past earthquake disaster, but they were mostly abandoned and

forgotten by community.

However, the people’s knowledge and awareness have significantly increased after

the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, which is also supported by the improvement

on IT technology. In some cases, people’s awareness are higher than their

knowledge which makes them vulnerable to be provocated during earthquake

events.

In summary, the vulnerability factors are explained in PAR model as shown in

figure 6 and figure 7.

T

Figure 4. Population and poverty in Indonesia (1970 – 2010) (source: BPS, 2013)

Figure 5. Percentage of population based on islands (as per 2010)

(source: BPS, 2013)


Vulnerable environments:

� Vulnerable buildings

and housing

� Vulnerable living areas

(mountainous,

liquefaction potential

area)

� Poor rural and urban

planning

Vulnerable population:

� Poverty and low income

population

� People with low access

to social access

Government actions:

� Almost no action on

earthquake disaster

mitigation

Public actions:

� Lack of Public

Knowledge and

Awareness

� Poor memory of past

disaster

Lack of:

� Budget

� Local institutions

� Knowledge and skills

� Law enforcement

� Standards and

Regulations

Gap on:

� Knowledge related with

disaster

� Access to social

services

� Economic and

infrastructure

development

Complicated and tend-to

corrupt bureaucracy

system

Population

� Rapid population

growth

� Concentrated

population

Earthquake

Collateral

Hazard:

� Tsunami

� Landslides

� Fire

Political System:

� Policy

� Political commitment

Social and Economic

System:

� Concentrated in some

parts of the country

Law and Regulation:

� Poor system which

tends to be corrupted

and/ or violated

DISASTER RISK

Figure 6. PAR Model (Before the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake)


Vulnerable

environments:

� Vulnerable buildings

and housing

� Vulnerable living areas

(mountainous,

liquefaction potential

area)

� Poor rural and urban

planning

Vulnerable population:

� Poverty and vulnerable

middle income

population

� People with low access

to social access

Public actions:

� Gap on Public

Knowledge and

Awareness

Lack of:

� Local institutions

� Knowledge and skills

� Law enforcement

Gap on:

� Knowledge related with

disaster

� Access to social

services

� Economic and

infrastructure

development

Population

� Rapid population

growth

� Concentrated

population

Earthquake

Collateral

Hazard:

� Tsunami

� Landslides

� Fire

Political System:

� Political commitment

(especially for local

government)

Social and Economic

System:

� Concentrated in some

parts of the country

DISASTER RISK

Figure 7. PAR Model (After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake)


FUTURE CHALLENGES AND PROPOSED ACTIONS

As can be seen from the PAR Model before and after the 2004 Indian Ocean

Earthquake (figure 6 and 7), Indonesia has improved its earthquake disaster

management in order to reduce disaster risk. However, as the disaster risk is dynamic,

the disaster management activities should also be dynamic. It makes the future

challenges are possible and need to be countermeasured. Those future challenges are:

1. More various and more frequent disasters.

Though the disaster budget are increased significantly, it needs to be divided to

countermeasure many type of disasters. Some disasters are frequently increased,

such as floods and forest fire, which reduce the budget allocation for the mitigation

of earthquake disaster.

2. Tendency to forget.

People and community tend to forget the past disaster, especially when the return

period is relatively longer.

3. Overlapping on disaster management activities.

Since several stakeholders have programmes on disaster management, the

overlapping activities between stakeholders might occur.

4. Tendency to corrupt.

Since the budget increased, the budget increasingly tends to be corrupted, both

intentionally and unintentionally corrupted.

To overcome the future challenges, several actions are proposed in order to reduce

vulnerabilities which result on lessening disaster risk. The proposed actions are:

1. Education on disaster for all levels of community.

Education is a key point to overcome the disaster vulnerabilities and to raise public

awareness on disaster. Education needs to be given for all levels of community in

all part of the country. The establishment of disaster mitigation center are also

necessary for disaster learning and education center so that the future generation

will not forget the earthquake disaster history.

2. Dissemination on standards, codes and regulations.

Several standards, codes and regulations in the field of infrastructures and urban

and rural planning have been established. All of them need to be disseminated to

the other stakeholders, such as engineers, designers, constructing companies as

well as university students, local authorities and communities.

3. Coordination between related stakeholders.

Since many stakeholders conduct the earthquake disaster management activities,

the coordination need to be taken. It is aimed to avoid duplicacy on program, and

to increase budget efficiency. The coordination could also reduce sectoral ego

between stakeholders which sometimes occurred during the disaster response.

4. Promoting technology on disaster management.

As part of disaster mitigation, development on technology dealing with disaster is

important. Technology such as early warning system, earthquake resistant system,


are necessary to be continuously developed. Low cost and applicative technology

must also be developed so that people can easily access and implement.

5. Cooperation with other earthquake prone countries.

Earthquake occurred in several coutries on the world, not only the country near the

techtonic plates but also country with inland fault. To improve capacity on

earthquake and disaster, collaboration and cooperation need to be taken among the

earthquake prone countries, such as Japan, Indonesia, Peru, New Zealand,

Phillipines, etc. The cooperation can be bilateral, regional and multilateral.

6. Community involvement (community based disaster management).

Community as one of the stakeholders must be actively involved on disaster

management, not only by improving their knowledge and awareness before the

disaster, but also their involvement during and after the disaster. Such community

based programme needs to be designed so that community would feel as a subject

of the disaster management activities instead of objects.

At present, some community based earthquake disaster management projects have

been conducted in West Sumatera, Yogyakarta, and West Java. But it needs to be

improved for larger communities.

7. Supervisory system and law enforcement.

Since the budget increased, the supervisory system needs to be built and

strengthened. It is important to minimize the risk of corruption and to maintain the

efficiency and effectiveness of programs. Simplify bureaucracy system is also an

effort to minimize the corruption risk.

Law enforcements need to be seriously and continuously undertaken so that the

regulation and standard related with building safety against earthquake can be

strictly implemented by construction-related stakeholders.

CONCLUSION

Due to its dynamic characteristics, disaster management activities are always

evolved and changing over time. Since the earthquake hazard cannot be reduced due

to its natural condition, the vulnerability factors can be managed and decreased. The

improvement efforts must be taken and implemented continuously since hazard might

occur anytime.

The commitment of stakeholders involved in the activities are necessary, such as

government as authority, community, academician, and others. To avoid conflict

between stakeholders, coordination is necessary. It is also important to improve

effectiveness and efficiency of activities. And to keep the activities on track and

achiveve the objectives, law enforcement is a must.


REFERENCES

Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana. 2013. Database & Informasi Bencana

Indonesia. http://dibi.bnpb.go.id

Badan Pusat Statistik. 2013. Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia 2013. Jakarta: BPS

Putra, R.R., Kiyono, J., Ono, Y., and Parajuli, H.R., 2012. Seismic Hazard Analysis

for Indonesia, Journal of Natural Disaster Science, Vol. 33, No. 2, 59-70

United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Human Development Report 2013.

The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World. New York: United

Nations Development Programme

United States Geological Survey. 2005. Magnitude 9.1 Off The West Coast of

Northern Sumatra. Last updated: February 23, 2005

Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., and Davis, I., 2004. At Risk: Natural Hazards,

People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd Edition. London: Routledge

Documents

INDONESIAN EARTHQUAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT AFTER THE 2004 INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE INTRODUCTION