After more than one month since the Situ Gintung dam collapsed and changed the lives of hundreds of residents in the area, victims are now asking whether they should rebuild their homes.
"The government must answer this question soon. When can we start rebuilding our homes in Situ Gintung?" said Dali, who lives in the Kerta Murti building in Cirendeu, Tangerang, just West of Jakarta near the Situ Gintung site.
"My extended family and I want to know how we should plan out our lives in the future," he added.
Dali is just one of the 20 families who was evacuated to the Kerta Murti building after the Situ Gintung dam collapsed early morning Friday March 27, unleashing a torrent of water that destroyed his home.
At least 100 people died in the incident and several have been presumed dead or missing. Hundreds of homes and buildings were destroyed, with an estimated 368 displaced people currently still living in refuges spread all around the Situ Gintung area.
Dozens of aid workers have since poured into the site to help the refugees. While food and material supplies have been plentiful, the government has so far prevented residents from rebuilding homes in the incident site, saying spatial planning work in the area was needed to prevent future incidents.
This has prevented Dali, who currently lives in a 20-square-meter space in the Kerta Murti building and shares a kitchen and bathrooms with other families evacuated there, to plan their future.
This is one of the major problems of short-term aid, said Ariana Susanti, chairperson of Sindhu Dharma Indonesia (SDI), an aid organization focusing on providing temporary housing to Situ Gintung victims.
Ariana said the families now needed tools and homes to rebuild their livelihood rather than more food and direct cash assistance.
"Especially now they've lost their documents too. They're going to need help getting their birth certificates, diplomas and degrees back," she said.
She said the SDI was concentrating on finding places to live for people who would eventually be forced to leave evacuation sites.
"Many of these people have simple jobs. For example, there is this man who is a welder. We simply bought him new welding tools and he said he was eternally grateful to have something to depend on for now," she said.
She said SDI plans to provide education to help victims form a cooperative, which should help them purchase tools quickly by credit or installments.
However, the plan would require money from the victims, who had lost nearly everything in the incident.
When asked how long she foresaw this problem lasting, she said she could not tell since many of the victims' decisions depended on the government's plan for the area.
The government, in this case the Banten province that governs the Tangerang region, has already delivered compensation worth Rp 5 million (US$470) to each family. The central government has pledged to give an additional Rp 30 million per family.
However, there has been no update on what the plan for the area is or when it will be implemented. The prognosis is: "not for a while," said Prasetyo Subekti, an aid consultant helping SDI.
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