T

he National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) is pushing its branch in Jakarta to focus on designing an awareness and preparedness guide for earthquakes, which can be distributed to city residents.

Sugeng Triutomo, BNPB’s deputy head for disaster prevention and preparedness, said the city administration had largely overlooked the risk of earthquakes in the capital.

“The city has extensive manuals for prevention and management of floods and fire, but hasn’t got a comprehensive guide for earthquakes,” Sugeng said during a seminar at the State Secretary complex in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

Sugeng said that Jakarta needed an earthquake guide to tell residents, particularly those in tall buildings, what to do in the event of a quake.

“Jakarta has many skyscrapers and office blocks and has experienced earthquakes during working hours in the past,” Sugeng said.

The official, however, said that the agency had not specified a deadline for production of the earthquake guide.

“We realize that Jakarta’s provincial Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) was only established last year,” Sugeng said.

The Jakarta BPBD, launched early last year, integrated the then existing Natural Disaster Mitigation Board and Refugee Crisis Center and part of the Fire Services and Disaster Management Agency.

The provincial agency is responsible for coordinating three main aspects of disaster management: prevention of and readiness for disasters; emergency response and logistics provision; and post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction.

“I hope they can complete the earthquake guide as soon as possible,” Sugeng said.

R. Hadianto Wardjaman, chairman of disaster prevention and relief NGO, Jakarta Rescue, said that Jakarta was poorly prepared for an earthquake. “We have yet to see routine earthquake drills and those that have been held were not properly done,” he said.

Hadianto explained that earthquake drills were different from fire drills.

“In fire drills, people are expected to act quickly; but in earthquake drills, calm and collected actions are most important,” he said.

Jakarta has been affected by earthquakes occurring in nearby regions, with the latest one in the early hours of Sunday when a magnitude-6 quake struck 95 kilometers southwest of West Java.

Jakarta was also among several cities in Java affected by the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck southwest of Tasikmalaya, West Java, in September 2009.

A number of people were injured as office workers in high-rises panicked and rushed to evacuate. Phone lines also went down for several minutes as a result of the quake.

The city administration has assured Jakartans that in the event of a massive earthquake, tall buildings in the city should withstand the tremors, saying that it had enforced international standards for high-rise buildings.

Data from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) shows that Jakarta is currently located in Zone III on the agency’s earthquake-zoning map.

This means that if a large quake hits Java’s southern coastline, Jakarta will most likely experience a maximum vibration frequency of no more than four on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale.