Introduction
Indonesia experienced two major earthquakes in the past two years. First, a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake that hit Aceh on December 26, 2004 was followed by a huge tsunami wave that devastated Aceh and brought Aceh into zero condition of life. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. All infrastructures were destroyed. Homes, buildings, schools, offices, factories, roads, bridges, and others were seriously damaged. The people who survived from the disaster were not lucky because there are limited basic needs such as: food, housing, electricity, water, and sanitation. The result of a development program of previous years was devastated by this disaster in only a few minutes. The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami in Aceh was 165,708 with US $ 4,747 million of total damage and losses. Second, a 6.3 Richter scale earthquake struck Yogyakarta and Central Java on May 27, 2006. The death toll caused by this earthquake was 5,716 people with US $ 3,134 million lost from the damage of private and public infrastructures (BAPPENAS, 2006).
Other severe disasters that have happened in Indonesia are floods and landslides. The Jakarta flood in early February 2007 has resulted in large economic losses because almost 70 % of Jakarta province was covered with from 1-5 meters of water and all economic activities were paralyzed. The flood killed at least 57 people and 420.440 people must abandon their homes and live as refugees. The damage and losses from this hazard reached US $ 1.8 million per day (Walhi, 2007). In another location, a landslide disaster that happened in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara province killed at least 40 people and dozens of houses were damaged (BBC News, 2007).
Geologically, Indonesia is located at the junction of three-earth plates: Eurasian, Indo-Australian and Pacific plate. The Eurasian plate moves southward by 3 cm/year and is hit by the Australian plate with velocity at least 3-7 cm/year from south. The colliding zones between these plates create “the ring of fire” which means “the ring where the tectonic earthquakes are mostly generated”. The implication from this condition is that Indonesia has potential to be struck by major tectonic earthquakes. Some of these earthquakes potentially generate tsunami. Another implication from geological setting is causing an active mountain belt from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara and Sulawesi and this belt creates the terrain condition of Indonesia mostly having many hills and valleys. The interaction between terrain condition of Indonesia and tropical climate has consequences making Indonesia highly vulnerable to landslide and flood disaster during rainy season. Unfortunately, there are many other types of natural disasters that potentially happen in Indonesia: tropical cyclone, drought and forest fire.
Disaster and development
There is a relationship between disaster and development. The development can reduce or increase the vulnerability of people from disaster. On the other hand, the disaster can cause setbacks in the development and can also create opportunities for development. Some governments ignore and the others realize it. The governments who ignore it are not concerned about disasters that potentially happen in the future and hope the disasters would not happen. The phenomenon is if the disaster strikes, they are just shocked and only can do little things and it is even more embarrassing moment if they ask help from other countries and relief organizations. The governments who realize that there is a relationship between disaster and development do so usually because their countries have been hit by a devastating disaster. They realize that the development results that have successfully done can be devastated by disaster only in few time. They realize that their past development programs, as Stephenson said in 1994, were not assessed in the context of disasters, neither from the effect of the disaster on the development program nor from the point of whether the development programs increased either the likelihood of a disaster or increased the potential damaging effects of a disaster.
On the other hand, there is a different picture in the developed countries. They have developed in economics and therefore have flexibility in using their budget to anticipate if natural disasters happen. One example is the United States. In 1906, a 7.7 on the Richter scale earthquake struck San Francisco (California) triggered a fire that caused a death toll over 3,000 people and more than 200,000 people were injured. The economic losses exceeded US $ 400 million in 1906 dollars. After that, as their economy developed they built more robust buildings, roads and other infrastructures in order to reduce the impact of an earthquake if it happens in the future. The benefits of these efforts were received when the city experienced another major earthquake (6.7 on the Richter scale) in 1989, which only killed 62 people and even though caused substantial economic losses, but the city recovered quickly.
The reasons why the governments of developing countries are reluctant to consider the disasters in their development program might can be found in Kofi Annan’s statement in 1999 (Mechler, R, 2005):
“Building a culture of prevention is not easy. While the costs of prevention have to be paid in the present, its benefits lie in a distant future. Moreover, the benefits are not tangible; they are the disasters that did NOT happen”.
The governments do not want to spend their money to make preparedness so they only conduct development programs as usual. It is reasonable, because to do that the governments have to spend much more money and there is no benefit until the disasters really strike in the future. The other reason to not consider the disasters in development program is it will need long-term commitment and longer planning horizons, and that is difficult to implement (Meller, R, 2005). The development programs in the developing countries usually must give direct advantages to the community and prevention for disasters wouldn’t give direct advantages to them
What should the government do?
The government of Indonesia actually has information about how vulnerable Indonesia is from natural disasters, but they still believe conventional paradigm towards natural disaster. Conventional paradigm assumes that natural disaster couldn’t be avoided. Therefore what we can only do is helping the victims immediately and give appropriate aids to reduce the losses and relief until the condition returns to normal. After the catastrophic tsunami hit Aceh in 2004, the government gradually shifted paradigm into mitigation/preventive paradigm. Mitigation means measures to lessen the impact of a disaster phenomenon by improving a community’s ability to absorb the impact with minimum damage or disruptive effect. The measures include both preparedness and protection of physical infrastructure and economic assets (Stephenson, R.S, 1994).
There are two choices that the government can choose from: spend now on prevention or mitigation and integrate it into development program or, keep the money and use it when the disaster happens. One basic principle affecting the choice is that spending on preparedness and mitigation should be less than the present value of the expected losses that would be averted by the preparedness/mitigation measure. (Stephenson, R.S, 1994). To analyze the cost of investing on mitigation and the benefits that might be got when disaster happens in the future, the government could use cost benefits analysis (CBA) method for natural disaster. For example, using CBA, the government can determine costs for alternative project options (cost) and damages with and without mitigation options (benefits). After that, they can calculate economic viability of options and choose most profitable development project to implement.
The government should consider the disaster in their development program. It is because Indonesia has many potential disasters that can strike immediately, so generally there will be more advantages or benefits in the future if the government spends their money to anticipate the disasters starting now. Some politicians and government officials who tend to justify that the lack of expenditure for mitigation because they think the disasters occur rather infrequently and uncertainty should change their point of view. The government policy should put the development in the context of natural disasters that could potentially happen in the future. They have to understand the types of natural disasters in their regions and design prevention of disaster while conducting the development program. The idea is to integrate prevention of disaster in the development program. The development program should reduce the vulnerability of society by improving their capability to face natural disasters. For the future, the government of Indonesia should:
1. Know and understand that although Indonesia is blessed by various natural resources, they are also accompanied by various potential natural disasters.
2. Shift consistently the paradigm: from focus on post-disaster action to disaster prevention/mitigation. Therefore all development programs should be put on “positive” aspect in relation with disaster, which is to decrease the vulnerability, and not in “negative” one, which can increase the vulnerability.
3. Have long-term commitment and longer planning horizon of development in which mitigation can be integrated into development program.
4. Obey and enforce the law consistently, for example space use law and land use regulation.
Conclusion
There is a good sign from the government as they put disaster management on The Government Working Plan 2007, which is to rehabilitate and reconstruct Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), Nias (North Sumatera), Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta and Central Java, and also to mitigate and fight disaster (RKP 2007). But, there is not enough if the government is only focusing on short-term period of development program or giving response for “putting on a show” that will not be effective at all. It needs to be continued on and on.
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