Indonesia pays dearly for tsunami
folly By Kafil Yamin
BANDUNG - As the death toll in the
earthquake and tsunami that struck Java island's
south coast on Monday passes the 500 mark,
Indonesian officials admit they were caught by
surprise - despite the elaborate precautions they
took after the bigger December 2004 tsunami that
killed an estimated 167,700 people in Aceh.
Indonesia's Social Ministry estimates that
at least 530 people have been killed, 240 people
are missing and hundreds injured in the latest
natural disaster to ravage Indonesia. In the
worst-hit Pangandaran beach town in southern Java,
hotels, restaurants, houses and public facilities
were destroyed.
Officials said more
casualties were expected as rescue teams continued
to search for survivors and dead bodies among
the
rubble of destroyed buildings.
Monday's tremor measured 6.8 on the Richter
scale, according to an official at Jakarta's
National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. The quake
then created 5-meter-high waves that crashed into
Java's southwest coast, sending thousands of
residents scrambling for higher ground.
Officials said 42,000 people living along
Pangandaran beach had taken refuge in higher
inland areas, while 52,000 residents of Cilacap,
Central Java, had fled their homes and were now in
refugee camps situated in the island's interior.
Soon after the initial earthquake,
which caused tremors both on Java and underwater,
the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in
Hawaii warned Indonesia of a possible tsunami
wave. But Indonesian officials, who received
detection equipment and technical assistance after
the 2004 Aceh disaster, were unable to put the
technology to timely use.
Surono,
an official of the Meteorology and
Geophysics department, said the tsunami detector was not
functioning when the killer waves struck. He said
one reason for the government's inadequate
response was a strong belief among scientists that
Java's south coast was a tsunami-free region.
"Our predictions were wrong," said Surono.
Kusmayanto Kadiman, minister
for science and technology, said the government
did not react to the PTWC's alert because it
wanted to avoid creating panic and alarm.
"Had the
tsunami not occurred, what would have happened?" he
asked while speaking to reporters in Jakarta.
However, Kadiman did say that standing plans to install
a nationwide tsunami early-warning system would be
accelerated.
The quake was also felt in
the capital Jakarta and several cities in West
Java, though so far there have not been any
reports of inland damage. Monday's tremor
represents the latest in a series of powerful
earthquakes to rock Indonesia.
On Cilacap
beach in Central Java, where 107 people have so
far been reported dead, the tsunami destroyed the
area's largest power plant, cutting off
electricity to the entire province. It's still
unclear how much crucial infrastructure the killer
waves damaged or destroyed.
Hundreds of
people saved themselves by rushing toward nearby
hills, fearing a repeat of the 2004 tsunami that
killed so many people in Aceh. "We were in total
panic and ran to the hills. Almost an entire
village here was inundated by water," Maswan, a
resident of Pangandaran, told the RCTI TV channel.
Pangandaran survivors said they saw the
wave reach a height of 5 meters before it crashed
on to the coast. The waves destroyed at
least 440 fishing boats and hundreds of shops
along Logending Beach in Central Java. Most of the
boats were anchored around a local fish auction
site, Antara news agency reported.
On May
27, a strong earthquake measuring 6.2 on the
Richter scale rocked Central Java's cultural city
of Yogyakarta and nearby areas, killing about
6,000 people and injuring thousands more.
Yogyakarta and its surrounding villages were just
beginning reconstruction work when the latest
tsunami struck.
Indonesia is located along
the Pacific volcanic belt known as the Ring of
Fire, where earthquakes and volcanoes are common.
On December 26, 2004, a 9.1 earthquake off the
west coast of Sumatra triggered a massive tsunami
that slammed into nine countries around the Indian
Ocean and destroyed half of Aceh's capital, Banda
Aceh, and several coastal villages.
Indonesia's military has deployed 2,000
personnel on rescue missions on the main sites.
"They will work on evacuation, medical treatment
and distribution of relief," said Marshal Mohammad
Suparto, chief of the Indonesia Military
Information Center.
Monday's tsunami has
added to the burden of President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, who is already supervising
reconstruction in Aceh and restoration work in
Yogyakarta, home to some of Indonesia's
internationally recognized heritage sites.
Yudhoyono, whose 21-month-old
presidency has been attended by several massive
natural disasters, asked local administration
heads in Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and Papua to be
cautious and well prepared for further tsunamis.
"We have
been going through a series of miserable
disasters. I hope we learned a lot of lessons from
this," Yudhoyono said.
