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
