W

hen an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck the west coast of Sumatra on Wednesday night, thousands of residents of Sikakap district, Mentawai Islands, rushed to nearby hills.

Having learned from a devastating tsunami in 2010 and previous drills organized by the authorities, the residents took the prepared paths to higher ground located a kilometer from North Pagai beach.

Fortunately, the tremblor, slightly more intense but further from the islands than that of 2010, caused no damage or loss of life.

But fear remained after arriving at the hill as no shelter or telecommunication facilities to call for assistance were available.

'€œThere was nothing up there. Everyone, including children and the elderly, had to stay there all night,'€ Sikakap district head Happy Nurdiana told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

She said the shelters that had been readied after the 2010 tsunami were unusable as were radio facilities that had been installed in 2007.

Mentawai Islands Disaster Management Agency head Elisa Siriparang also lamented the lack of communication facilities. '€œWhen the earthquake occurred, I was on a boat heading to Padang. My cell phone was functioning but I couldn'€™t reach anyone on site,'€ he said.

She added that several other facilities, including tsunami-warning sirens, were out of service.

Indonesia, the world'€™s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific '€œRing of Fire'€, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines circling the Pacific Basin.

A massive quake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale off the northern part of Aceh in 2004 triggered a tsunami that left 230,000 people dead in a dozen countries. Most of the deaths were in Aceh.

Since then escalated preparation efforts for the mitigation of earthquakes and tsunamis had been made along the western coast of Sumatra.

An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale off the coast of West Sumatra rocked the province in 2009, claiming at least 1,100 lives and injuring thousands more, although no tsunami occurred.

In 2010, a 7.7-magnitude quake caused a tsunami that swept away two villages in South and North Pagai islands, killing at least 23 and destroying hundreds of homes.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) located the epicenter of the quake 280 kilometers off Padang, the province'€™s capital, and 20 kilometers deep. Wednesday'€™s jolt was located 659 kilometers from Muara Siberut, a town in Mentawai, and was 24 kilometers deep.

Rapot Pardomuan, a local rights activist with the Alliance of Indigenous People (AMAN), said the earthquake should be a wake-up call for the central government and local authorities to better equip tsunami-prone areas. '€œThe central government and local administrations must act,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, the government praised the preparedness of local residents.

President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo said he believed people in Sumatra now had a better awareness about how to stay safe during natural disasters, particularly earthquakes and tsunamis, as a result of the experience of past disasters.

'€œEveryone is [now] aware; this is important,'€ Jokowi said on the sidelines of his visit to Medan, North Sumatra.

'€œWhat'€™s important is how people respond immediately by leaving houses and buildings to seek higher ground. And all of that was put into practice last night by the people in Mentawai Islands,'€ said National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

But with the risk of tsunamis still endemic in the archipelago, Sutopo said the government needed to increase the budget for tsunami-mitigation efforts.
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Earthquake record in Mentawai

* July 6, 2013: 6.1-magnitude earthquake jolted the island and also felt in the Sumatra cities of Padang, Jambi and Bengkulu. No reports of damage or fatalities.

* Nov. 27, 2014: A 4.7-magnitude earthquake shook South Siberut Regency, Mentawai Islands. No reports of damage or fatalities.

* Dec. 18, 2014: A 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook the island again. No reports of damage or casualties.

* July 24, 2015: A 4.8-magnitude quake reported some 110 km west-southwest of Padang. No casuaties and damage were reported.

*Aug. 2, 2015: A 4.7-magnitude earthquake Mentawai again and was also felt in Padang and Painan. No casualties and damage were reported.

Source: Various