P

adang students forced into tent classrooms after last September’s earthquake destroyed their school will soon start learning in a privately-built, state-run senior high school that can double as a tsunami evacuation center, which was officially launched this weekend.

“The building can accommodate 5,000 people who live within a 1-kilometer radius if there is a tsunami,” said Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar at the opening ceremony, which was also attended by Deputy Education Minister Fasli Jalal and Tzu Chi International Buddhist institution CEO Stephen Huang.

Tzu Chi International was reported to have paid most of the Rp 3.9 billion needed to build SMAN 1 Padang, assisted by several other donors.

Fauzi said that the school is a 3-story building with 42 rooms, a mosque, a sport center and a rooftop helicopter pad for emergency evacuations, adding that it was designed to withstand a magnitude 9-magnitude earthquake. The new building is 1 kilometer inland and 4 kilometers from the site of the old school.

The original school was severely damaged by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that devastated Padang and several areas in West Sumatra on Sept. 30 last year, killing 1,117 people and injuring more than 3,000.

Since the temblor, activities at the school have been held in tents and emergency shelters until the Buddhist institution built the new earthquake-resistant school.

“This is what we call the blessing behind the disaster,” school committee chairman Yunazar Manjang said.

Tzu Chi International CEO Stephen Huang said that Padang was similar to Hualien, Taiwan, where Tzu Chi International founder Master Cheng Yen lived.

“Both provinces are beautiful and prone to earthquake, yet we stay because it is the place where Master Cheng Yen lives. We hope the spirit of the Tzu Chi Buddha will prevail here in Padang,” he said.

The foundation said it had provided 80,000 tons of rice to poor families and built up to 6,000 houses and 14 schools for the survivors of Aceh’s tsunami and Padang’s earthquake.

“I feel more safe now from possible tsunamis and earthquakes — although I still feel upset when people run upstairs and the roof above my classroom is shakes,” Adelina Damarfitri, 9, told The Jakarta Post.

Another pupil, Nafidzah Khairina, said that she now needs someone to take her to the school because it would be too complicated to go by public transportation from her house in Belimbing.

“But I am happy because we don’t need to study in a damaged building or in makeshift tents,” she added.