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ne year after the March 11, 2011, Japanese tsunami, hundreds of scientists and experts from all over the world gathered in Tokyo recently to listen to first-hand information from Japanese scientists and disaster authorities about what exactly happened and what went wrong.

Representatives of tsunami working groups from the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean gathered in this first international symposium to learn about last year’s disaster.

Indonesia was represented by 10 experts at the symposium, which was jointly organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations University. Participants visited the impacted areas in Tohoku to learn the lessons and witness the scale of the damage from the disaster.    

We all knew that Japan started preparations to anticipate tsunamis decades ago. High breakwaters constructed for halting tsunami waves could be found in many places around the Tohoku area, in the northern part of Honshu Island. Advanced seawater observation systems had been installed off islands. Their early warning system was one of the best in the world. Undoubtedly, all of these contributed to minimizing damage and the number of casualties in last year’s tsunami.

However, the Japanese experts humbly revealed that although massive efforts to anticipate the tsunami had been taken, there were still a number of weaknesses in their preparations that could have otherwise lowered the number of casualties and limited material loss.

Among the things they underestimated were the quake magnitude and the tsunami wave heights. They expected a 7.7-magnitude quake, but the last year tsunami was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude quake. They had planned to block waves as high as 10 meters, but the ones that came last year reached 18 meters. Their estimations were also proven wrong when the waves overturned four-story buildings around Onagawa city, in the Miyagi prefecture.

These confessions to the world did not lead to others underestimating the Japanese experts’ knowledge and skills. Conversely, it truly drew broader respect from international experts. Their message to the world is clear: Please expect the unexpected.

They found that incorrect expectations contributed to partial-preparedness of the communities around the impacted coastal areas. The construction of seawalls and breakwaters gave communities a false sense of security. For instance, due to the high breakwaters, people moved closer to coastal areas thinking that the breakwaters would protect them and they would be safe.

Furthermore, the seawater-level recession right after the earthquake was not significant enough for some people. It sent the wrong message on the magnitude of the tsunami.

Similar mistakes are very likely to be repeated in Indonesia.

“Expect the unexpected” is clearly parallel to the story of Minamisanriku’s mayor, whose life was saved by an antenna pole on the roof of the disaster agency’s office in his city. He ended hung onto the pole due to underestimates of the wave heights. He was among 10 people who survived by hanging on the pole, while 20 disaster agency staff members were swept away. Four floors of its escape building were inundated by the tsunami.

In Indonesia, some preparations have been made to anticipate a similar tsunami. A national law was enacted in 2007 to govern disaster management. Workshops to increase community preparedness to tsunamis have been established in a significant number of districts and provinces. Escape buildings, escape roads and tsunami buoys have been constructed in tsunami-prone areas, and evacuation drills have been carried out..

One of the cities undergoing such preparations is Padang, said to be located close to the seismic gap of the Indo-Australian fault line off Sumatra.

However, simple questions should be put to our disaster management authority: How accurately have we calculated the tsunami-wave heights for our cities? How do we reflect the estimated tsunami waves into the construction of our escape facilities? Have we provided the correct knowledge and information to community?

Indonesia has a growing number of tsunami experts. But there are not enough to provide all the important information to tsunami-prone areas in Indonesia. Furthermore, although recommendations have been made, few of them have been adopted as tsunami mitigation measures by our cities.

Learning from the Japanese tsunami, Indonesia has to wake up and refresh the way of thinking to anticipate future tsunamis. Answering all the questions and resolving problems surely requires massive effort, from not only the disaster management agency but also scientists and local communities. We still have many things to do to protect ourselves from a tsunami that may come to an unexpected place at an unexpected time in an unexpected scale.

Syamsidik is a tsunami researcher at Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center (TDMRC) and a lecturer from the Civil Engineering Department at Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh. Odi Akhyarsi is a PhD-holder and an Indonesian who lives and works in Tokyo.