Post-Disaster Programs, The Aftermath

After a long period of eruption, from Oct 26th 2010, Merapi’s activity has decreased. Unpredictable eruption in 5th Nov caused a big casualties. Many people died from the pyroclastic flow that strucked a villages more than 10 km from Merapi’s crater.

Now, people start to move back to their homes. Unfortunatelly, houses were destroyed by pyroclastic flow, or locals call it as “wedhus gembel” because it looks like local goats. Plants and trees were destroyed, animal were killed, including cows and goats. People lost their homes, jobs, except their lives.

What should they do now? That is the problem here.

At least 3 – 5 years to grow the plants, and another year to harvest it. Building the houses back is another problem. How long will the houses last? What if in another 15 years, there would be another disaster like this? Economic loss would be devastating for them, not to mention life loss.

Here, government should plan carefully where should they relocate the people. The place should be safer than the previous one. Then, the people should be trained to work in other fields to support their lives. They could not just rely on their destroyed farms, and they also can not rely on the help of other people.

Mental healing should be implemented, especially to children. Their fear of that catastrophe should be erased, and they should learn about that catastrophe and how to react when it happens again. These kind of things can not be learned from teachers since there are no subject related to it. I think, government should start to teach children from elementary school about nature awareness.

Last, I hope they would recover as soon as possible. We have learned a great lesson from this disaster. I hope also for the government to be aware of these disasters and should manage the system so the casualties can be as minimum as possible.

Aditya Mahar

Bad Management of Refugee Camps

Many refugees from around Merapi Volcano were stranded in many refugee camps around Yogyakarta, Sleman, Wonosari, Muntilan, Magelang, and Klaten. What happen in those places? How do they fulfill their daily needs?

Yesterday, I and my friend Alkhapila went to Klaten, around 40 minutes drive by car from my home. There are around 7 refugee camps spread across Klaten. What I found out was very unpredictable. Many refugee camps don’t have any mobile kitchen. They rely on supplies from few logistic posts. So what do they do? That is the biggest question.

Second of all, bureaucracy in this town is very complicated. Asking for few items, we need a lot of permission, while some of the refugees are starving or feeling cold. Worse, the logistics aren’t well coordinated. There isn’t any central coordination of this town to coordinate the logistics. Instead of that, there are many logistic posts which accept and calculate the logistics from the donation, and write those which go out.

Worst, many problems could arise between refugees. Like I found a case where refugees refused to eat cold rice and a few pieces of meat and vegetables. One person said, “I could afford more than this, I don’t want to eat this!” They also feel like kings and queen, they choose many second hand shirts from the donation like they are shopping in the market. I also worried about other cases that may arise among them, such as pickpockets and boredom.

My friend also told me how bad refugee camps in Magelang. He said, they need many volunteers there to help them. Although there are many donation from the people.

I hope volunteers could manage refugees to help them which could kill their boredom. It also helps the volunteer much.

Worst Scenario Possible

Starting from 26th Oct 2010, Merapi erupted for the first time. People predicted it would be just like the 2006 eruption, where one major eruption followed by minor ones. Not now, unfortunatelly. This volcano “rested” just for one day or two, then followed by unpredictable bigger eruption from the first, the 4th Nov – 5th Nov eruption, just before midnight.

The game began when the experts predicted the wrong phenomena. The casualties is big enough to punish the mistake, more than 70 died of pyroclastic flow. Although at that time, the village that was struck by the pyroclastic flow was more 15 km from the volcano, and more than the radius of 10 km of evacuation zone in 26th Oct 2010. Then it was raised to 15 km, then to 20 km.

Search and Rescue team with addition personals from the Indonesian Army started to do evacuations on the villages, and search and rescue in the villages struck by the pyroclastic flow. Again it is a game of life and death. SAR team raced against the time and death. A fatal impact might happen when there is a little mistake of predicting the volcano. 4 deaths of the SAR team, Ariatno, Samiyo, Supriyadi, dan Supriyanto are the names of the victims of the pyrocastic flow.

Now, how will the the coordinator of the SAR team, and the people play the “game” with Merapi? There was just an explosion around 23.20, when I was writing this blog. How will it ends tomorrow? No one knows.

Now, let us think of the worst scenario possible. A sleep for a few days may cause a bigger explosion, for the energy will be accumulated, and released at a high level. So, many experts hope for a continuous explosion at a low level like this, rather than a bigger explosion later. The casualties if it happens? This is how it would work. This volcano sleeps for a few days, while it is accumulating the energy, the people around Merapi would go back to their villages. Unpredictable explosion and a slow evacuation, added by bad visual contact like previous explosions could cause a very big damage. Many people would die, like the 5th Nov exlplosion.

Economic loss could be earned again later on, but life loss can not be tolerated. People should stay aware, while not believing hoax that could provoke an unnecessary chaos. As long as the search and rescue team work fast and alerted, it would be very dangerous.

A Bigger Catastrophe of Merapi

Woke up at 0010 , I thought it was just a big bus passing by. I was wrong, Merapi it is, the source of the continuous bang. Ash-fall upon Yogyakarta, and evac zone from 10 kilos 3 days before, raised to 15 kilos in 24 hours and 20 kilos just after the explosion in around 2400.

Unable to do a visual contact,  because the darkness of the night, worse the wind blows southbound, creating ash-fall. Based on the sound of the explosion and the ash-fall, evacuation around 20 kilos must be done. Refugee camps ranged around 25 – 30 kilos.

Based on the experience of older people, this kind of catastrophe created by Merapi is an anomaly. 2006 eruption was shorter in duration, followed by smaller and weaker eruption. This time, it is something that I didn’t expect to happen, although I wished to happen. An explosion on Oct 26th 2010, it was pretty big, killing at least 32 (including Maridjan, the most respected the elder there) who chose to stay. I expected to cool down, so I went there after the explosion in Oct 29th, and after Tuesday Oct 2nd explosion. I was lucky the wind blew eastbound.

Oct 3rd explosion proved me wrong. It was bigger, and 3 hours ago was even bigger based on my prediction and the sound it created. This strato-volcano might be releasing most of its power.

Effect upon the patients in Pakem, they were evacuated to Sardjito Hospital, around 30 kilos from Merapi. If it continues until the next day, it is possible that Adisucipto might be closed down from any flight.

Sunlight is needed to confirm by visual the impact of the explosion.

Aditya Mahar

Merapi, a Bless or a Disaster?

This afternoon, I went out to Merapi just 30 mins after the explosion. Two days after ash-fall upon Yogyakarta, south of Merapi. 32 people died before the day before the ash reached Yogyakarta. They died because of the earlier pyroclastic flow that destroyed the village, including Mbah Maridjan, the “Gatekeeper of Merapi”.

I started to think, why it took so many casualties upon the people there. One day before the explosion, the warning level had been raised to the maximum level where no one should be in radius of the pyroclastic flow. People gathered in refugee camps, around 20 kilos from Yogyakarta, but still there are people who stay in the village, although it is in the radius of the pyroclastic flow.

A bad management of disaster and poor knowledge of the people about the danger made the casualties worse. Again, the culture plays the role here. Mbah Maridjan didn’t want to leave from his house because of his experience, he didn’t get hurt from the previous explosion. Unfortunatelly, more than 80 years of experience is nothing compared to the age of the mount itself…

This stratovolcano that buried previous human civilizations under its ashes. Buddhist Temple of Borobudur, Hindu Temple of Prambanan and other yet unknown sites had been buried by the mount’s ashes. How small we are compared to this volcan. Yet we have been granted science by the Almighty to guide us enduring the mechanism the Almighty created, but the problem is, why the casualties are unnecessary? We could have saved those people.

Again, the question is our task to answer and to prevent from happening again.

Still, there is a bless behind the disaster… if we endure it…

I hope we learn from the past

Economics Free From Corruption

Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Gajah Mada, Yogyakarta held a national seminar,”Ekonomi Bebas Korupsi” yesterday, October 16^th 2010. This seminar was attended by Bibit Samad Rianto (Chief of KPK), Rimawan Pradiptyo (FEB UGM lecturer), Anggito Abimanyu (FEB UGM lecturer), Yanuar Rizky (ICW analyst), Hanta Yudha (Indonesian Institute).

This seminar was exchanging the idea of facing corruption, especially in Indonesia. People with lots of enthusiasm exchanged ideas of facing and fighting corruption. The speakers also provided a lot of information and data of corruption cases in Indonesia, and also their ideas of fighting them.

Rimawan Pradiptyo, gave his idea of making a new institution that supervise and watch  the financial of government and private  institutions, without any intervention from government. This institution could be a control power for other institutions.

Anggito Abimanyu also exchange the idea of how the corruption happened in the Indonesian bureaucracy. How members of the house of representatives tried to corrupt with a good way. How those members of house of representatives got elected with money, and return they had to give political easiness to those who has supported them.

Yanuar Rizky as the last speaker, gave the idea of corruption from his point of view as a stock market analyst. As he provided the data to the audience, he talked about “insider trading” that happened in Indonesia and other countries. He showed how people with information get money out of themselves.

While there are many more from others speakers as I couldn’t write them all, the seminar was very interesting and educating. Opening the minds of the audiences of what happened in Indonesia.

Last but not least, I hope this seminar and other things that helps people to fight corruption to be held again at other times, as long as corruption still exist in the world.

Aditya Mahar

*Ps: I am sorry for my mistakes of writing names,etc; and also limited info

Prelude

After changing a few times, deleting, posting, deleting (again).. Finally I, myself, decided to make this blog again. Filling it with things that happened in my life, and my random thoughts.

Contrast with my other blog (adityamahar.blogspot.com), this blog (I hope) will constantly provide you with a lot of useful info and great thoughts that maybe someday, will change the WORLD, although just a little bit.

Afterwards, please enjoy reading my posts.

If John F. Kennedy said “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” maybe I, myself, should add “ask not what the world can do for you – ask what you can do for your world”

Aditya Mahar