Publication & Articles

Oct 2018

By: Scott Younger

Forbes Indonesia

IT IS NOT MUCH more than a year and a half since the Pidie earthquake in Aceh province in December 2016. This invoked a comment from me (FI, Jan 2017) about the need to carry out an inventory at regional government level of old civic and commercial buildings in the many earthquake zones of the archipelago. The recent several devastating events in and around the island of Lombok, preceded by the rumblings of Mt Agung in Bali, still ongoing after one year with its associated earthquakes, are again a reminder that attention has to be paid to structures, most of which are not designed to withstand strong earthquakes.
 
There has to be a systematic effort carried through by local government to undertake a structural inventory and either strengthen through retrofitting or, if more appropriate, replace vulnerable, sometimes venerable buildings. The behavior and impact of earthquakes and the technological solutions to withstand or at least minimize damage to structures are well understood and have to be taken into account for the design and construction of new urban developments.
 
In the case of lower level housing and small private endeavors, architects and engineers should be paying increasing attention to using more widely flexible components in construction such as bamboo, something which grows easily in the tropical climate of Indonesia.
 
There are already some interesting structures in Bali that are including bamboo as a part, sometimes very significantly, of new structures. East Bali Poverty Project has now established a bamboo training center. There is also the Green School. but wider application is needed and the preparation and issue of a clear bamboo design manual that becomes an important element in building regulations.
 
One of my abiding memories, from viewing the devastation of the Aceh tsunami disaster of December 2004, was visiting a residential area where all but one structure had been flattened, and I am not referring to the magnificent, sturdily built 1881 Grand Baiturrahman mosque. The reinforced concrete framework of the two-storey house that had withstood the tsunami, albeit non-structural elements such as doors and windows had obviously been affected, had been properly designed and constructed; its foundation to main structure and joints for columns and beams had been put in correctly.
 
The 2004 earthquake-triggered tsunami was followed three months later by another earthquake in Nias, killing 1,000 people and leaving many homeless – note the relatively close timing to that of the Aceh disaster. In May 2006, the large earthquake that struck Yogyakarta, killing 5,700 and destroying 280,000 homes, was followed seven weeks later by one o! the south Java coast triggering a small tsunami, killing 650 and leaving 28,000 people displaced. One main tectonic event can often be a signal for others to follow shortly thereafter.
 
In November 2012, attended by President Yudhoyono, a high level conference in Jakarta to wrap up the World
Bank administered Multi-Donor Fund and a similar fund to administer relief efforts was held, and attended by representatives from Japan and Haiti, who added their natural disaster knowledge and experiences.
 
The Indonesian presentations indicated that the country was developing systems to deal promptly with disasters, both to provide for immediate needs and for the longer term with community recovery.
 
The strong response to recent events would seem to show that the systems are working. The next thing is to turn more attention to resistance and resilience factors in rebuilding and in new building codes and materials. Indonesia straddles arguably the most active earthquake, volcanic eruption location on the planet.