P

adang: West Sumatra needs 300 shelters to accommodate people from the danger of possible tsunamis along the extended coastline facing the Indian Ocean.

The shelters could save up to 900,000 people living in the red zones, which were prone to tsunami hazards, head of the West Java Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), Yazid Fahdli, said on Monday.

 Yazid said that if each shelter had a capacity of 2,000 people, the 300 shelters would be able to accommodate up to 600,000 people during a potential disaster.

“This number would be adequate to accommodate residents, as we expect some locals would move to additional shelters built by the residents themselves or leave the beaches and seek safety elsewhere,” Yazid said.

As the costs for building the shelters are high, Yazid has asked for assistance from the central government, provincial administrations, third parties and the residents themselves.

The cost of building one shelter would be between Rp 5 billion (US$520,835) and Rp 10 billion, meaning a total cost of around Rp 3 trillion to build all the shelters. That would be far too expensive for the regional administration to bear alone.