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Infrastructure development requires disaster mitigation plan: Experts

As a tropical country located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is prone to natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and landslides

Riza Roidila Mufti (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, November 19, 2019

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Infrastructure development requires disaster mitigation plan: Experts

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span>As a tropical country located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is prone to natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and landslides.

However, despite the high risk of such disasters, the country’s infrastructure development is not supported by a well-prepared mitigation plan, Khrisna Suryanto Pribadi, a professor at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said during the 10th National Conference of Road Engineering in Jakarta on Nov. 5.

“We currently focus on post-disaster reconstruction and emergency response after a disaster instead of developing a mitigation plan for infrastructure development,” he said.

Khrisna said it was time for Indonesia to step up its game in disaster mitigation measures in infrastructure as many public facilities such as roads and railway tracks were built in disaster-prone areas.

“If we look deeper, many sections of the national roads and toll roads in Java have been built on faults. There are also airports that are at risk of tsunamis. Moreover, the railway line for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train in West Java also passes faults,” he said.

For instance, Khrisna said, at least five sections of national roads are located in disaster-prone areas in West Sumatra, such as the Padang Sawah-Manggopoh, the Manggopoh-Pariaman, and the Lubuk Selasih-Batas Kota Padang road sections. The five road sections were extensively damaged during the 2009 West Sumatra earthquake. Meanwhile, two of the five roads also collapsed in landslides in 2016 and 2018.


“Unfortunately, infrastructure maintenance is poor. The budget for maintenance is also small and therefore most maintenance work is focused on repairing damaged facilities.”


At least 16 airports are also at risk of tsunamis as they are located close to the shoreline. Minangkabau International Airport in Padang, for instance, is only 500 meters from the coastline, while Frans Kaisepo Airport in Biak is 100 m from the shoreline and Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali is right on the coast.

While natural disasters are unavoidable, Krishna said the quality of infrastructure was the key to minimizing losses and damage caused by natural disasters.

“Unfortunately, infrastructure maintenance is poor. The budget for maintenance is also small and therefore most maintenance work is focused on repairing damaged facilities,” he said.

The Public Works and Housing Ministry’s senior official, Arie Setiadi Moerwanto, said the country had been late in adopting an up-to-date earthquake disaster risk map in the development of many buildings and infrastructure facilities across the country. The latest disaster risk map is mostly used as a handbook for future development that is generally not used to assess existing buildings.

“When there is a new disaster map, we should also evaluate existing buildings and infrastructure. We have to evaluate whether our infrastructure is safe or if it needs to be strengthened to meet the latest requirements of the new disaster map,” said Arie, who is also the head of Palu Post-Reconstruction Task Force, formed after 2018 earthquake. Arie said Indonesia was now more aware of the need for disaster mitigation measures in building infrastructure.

The Palu earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction, which claimed 4,140 lives and caused damage to 68,451 houses and 661 school buildings, gave a valuable lesson for better disaster mitigation, said Arie.

“In Palu, we are reconstructing while redoing the area’s spatial arrangement based on the latest disaster risk map,”
said Arie.

In reconstruction, the government is using a building back better concept, which was used in Japan after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The concept emphasizes stronger and better infrastructure in areas damaged by natural disasters.

“For example, at one hospital that was damaged in the earthquake because it did not have a solid structure, we installed an earthquake isolator so that the hospital could withstand even a 7 to 8 magnitude earthquake,” said Arie.

Another disaster mitigation measure is building an emergency shelter on a road near a building that can also be utilized as an emergency shelter during a disaster.

According to the latest disaster report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Indonesia, along with India and China, are countries with average annual disaster-related losses exceeding US$20 billion.

In 2016, Indonesia suffered Rp 7 trillion ($497.21 million) in losses caused by hydro-meteorological and geological disasters. The amount was equal to 0.08 percent of the country’s GDP. In 2017, disasters caused Rp 4.7 trillion in losses, equal to 0.05 percent of GDP.

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