It looks as though Indonesia is yet to be free of disasters. With the Jakarta floods receding and the capital's residents counting their losses, a ferry caught fire 80 kilometer's off the city's coast on Thursday. At least 16 people were killed and another 17 remain missing.

The ship fire happened just a day after an Adam Air plane made a "hard landing" at Juanda airport in Surabaya. All 148 passengers and crew were uninjured, but coming less than two months after the Adam Air flight in January that vanished carrying 102 people, it caused some panic.

In the same way, the fire that engulfed the Levina 1 on Thursday came on the heels of the capsizing of the Senopati Nusantara in the Java Sea two months ago, an accident that killed dozens and left hundreds missing.

The wreckage of both the Senopati Nusantara and the Adam Air flight have still not been found. Neither have the causes behind their ends.

Many people will be easy to believe that the nation has been cursed and look for superstitious answers to the calamities. Others blame nature, or accept the catastrophes as tribulations from God.

There is nothing wrong with the argument that disasters are a test of faith and thus should lead humans back to religious.

But to be honest, most accidents or disasters are man-made and therefore preventable. Floods and landslides could be avoided by stopping deforestation or setting up suitable flood control schemes. Earthquakes and tsunamis are natural disasters, certainly, but efforts can be made to minimize the damage and casualties.

All the recent transportation and natural disasters are explicable and one can easily conclude that human error was behind all of those tragic events.

The Levina 1 was reportedly overloaded when it embarked on its journey to Bangka Island in South Sumatra and was carrying chemicals, which allegedly sparked the blaze.

The government has decided to ground Adam Air's fleet of Boeing 737-300s following the accident in Surabaya, in order to examine the aircrafts' air worthiness, which is the correct thing to do. The decision was made despite their airline's claim that the plane that landed in Surabaya had passed airworthiness tests. The tougher and more persistent the control measures, the safer air transportation will be.

Several former Adam Air pilots spoke out after the New Year's plane crash on safety procedures at the company, saying they had been forced to violate regulations in order to cut operational costs. Their statements must be substantiated, but there is much suspicion that low-cost airlines have compromised on safety to survive the tight competition.

In the case of the Senopati Nusantara, survivors said that the ship's engine had failed shortly before it was struck by rough tides, and that hundreds of passengers had not survived because they had been locked below decks.

These disasters speak volumes of the lack of precautionary measures the country takes. All measures are reactionary in nature and fade in a matter of months, returning everything to normal, as evident in the latest transportation accidents.

While it claims to be a religious nation, Indonesia fails to translate one teaching shared by the major religious, that as the most dignified creature, man is blessed with the ability to change his life or fate through his own efforts. God helps those who help themselves.