Jakarta – A recent landslide in Central Java that has left at least 39 people dead has highlighted Indonesia's vulnerability to fatal landslides, as well as the government's inability to adequately deal with chronic catastrophes.
Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported on Sunday evening that 39 people are confirmed dead after heavy rain on Friday triggered a landslide in Jemblung, Banjarnegara district, Central Java, burying dozens of homes.
More than a dozen of people are injured and more than 70 others remain missing, while a total of 577 people have been displaced from their homes and are now staying in temporary shelters, the BNPB says.
"Families of identified victims have taken [their relatives' remains] and held a burial for them. A police forensic team are still identifying others," BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a press statement on Sunday.
"Refugees urgently need food, blankets, sanitary kits, medicines and clothing – children's clothing especially."
A joint team of police, military, BNPB officers and volunteers – 2,000 personnel in total – had been dispatched to search for the missing victims, he added. The Ministry of Public Works also has sent in heavy equipment expected to help victim search.
President Joko Widodo visited the site around midday on Sunday. He also visited a shelter for displaced victims and a local community health center treating those who are injured.
"I extend my condolences concerning the landslide catastrophe that struck Jemblung in Sampang village," Joko said in Jakarta a day prior to the visit. "Landslides should provide lesson for us, of the importance of a balanced environment," he added.
Officials blame conversion of lands into farms and illegal logging in Banjarnegara for one of the worst landslide disasters recorded in Indonesia over the past few years.
The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said it recorded high rainfall intensity in Banjarnegara, up to 100 millimeters during the day of the disaster.
The head of BMKG's meteorology center, Mulyono Prabowo, warned that similarly heavy downpours might still shower Banjarnegara and surrounding hilly areas for the next couple of days, rendering many spots prone to landslides.
"Banjarnegara and [neighboring] Dieng plateau have hilly topography, with steep slopes. Heavy rainfalls will make the lands unstable and may trigger landslides," Mulyono said. "Many of the slopes also have been converted to potato farms, and as such, there are no strong trees [to keep soil layers from collapsing]."
The local BNPB office said as many as 25 locations in Banjarnegara remain prone to landslides along Indonesia's rainy season that will usually last through February.
"The vulnerable areas include Madukara, Bawang, Kalibening and Pagentan subdistricts, all of which are quite populated," BPBD Banjarnegara chief Catur Subandrio said.
BPBD Banjarnegara earlier reported increasing number of landslides in the region over the past few years: 57 incidents in 2007, 76 incidents in 2008, 126 incidents in 2009 and 200 incidents in 2010. It blames illegal logging for the growing prevalence, with deforested lands losing trees and their roots that otherwise reinforce soil layers and prevent landslides.
Catastrophic losses, he said, average up to Rp 30 trillion ($2.3 billion), while BNBP's disaster relief funds only total Rp 3 trillion per year.
According to a 2012 study sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund, BNBP and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), 99 percent of Indonesia's population of 250 million people live in an area with "very high risk" of natural disaster, meaning at least one natural disaster has occurred in the area in the past five years.
"A total of 315 districts and cities, with 60.9 million people living in them, are prone to medium-high floods in Indonesia. As for landslides, 270 districts and cities with 124 million people living them are at very high risk of landslides," Sutopo said.
The BNPB said as many as 270 districts and municipalities in Indonesia are prone to landslides. They are home to 124 million people, more than half of the country's population. The landslide-prone areas are mostly concentrated on the islands of Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi.
Geologist Haryadi Permana of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, or LIPI, on Sunday admitted that Indonesia's mitigation efforts against landslides, despite the high occurrence, lagged behind those for more high-profile disasters, namely volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
He said dealing with landslides was a tricky situation, given the widely-spattered locations of landslide-prone areas. He said the situation made it difficult for the government to apply early warning system, resulting in the catastrophe recurring every time.
Over the weekend in Papua, five people died of a separate rain-triggered landslide in Jayapura – Late last month four people were killed in a landslide, also triggered by torrential rain, in South Tapanuli, North Sumatra. Dozens of other casualties were reported in a string of landslides in other regions earlier this year.
"Landslides have long been an issue in Indonesia, but the distribution of incidents and prone areas is extraordinary, hampering mitigation efforts," said Haryadi, who heads LIPI's Geotechnology Research Center.
"You've heard cases of landslides that struck areas where only a few people lived. But when it happens, people do get killed, and the incident makes media headlines."
Haryadi said state-funded LIPI and the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), as well as Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, had actually been developing an early warning technology to warn people living in landslide-prone areas of potential landslides.
The equipment has been tested in several areas in Central Java and it works, but questions remain as to how to install the system in hundreds of thousands of landslide-prone locations across 270 districts and municipalities.
The gadgets must also be well-guarded to prevent tampering and theft, as occurred during pilot testing, Haryadi said.
He added LIPI also had actually been developing another technology to prevent landslides, GreaTest, which functions by controlling water content of a landslide-prone area. "But then again, where should we install the equipment? Locations of land-prone areas are too greatly scattered," Haryadi said.
He added with global warming and climate change disrupting weather patterns, including by bringing in more rains in Indonesia, the prevalence of landslides might continue to increase, posing even more threats to Indonesia.
Haryadi said it was difficult to tell landslide-prone people to relocate, saying many of them were farmers who support families by opening farms in hilly, mountainous areas often prone to landslides. He says reforestation campaigns may help by planting trees that can hopefully prevent landslides.
Gede Suantika, an official with the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation (PVMBG) at the Energy Ministry, meanwhile, said the key might be intensifying warnings against landslides ahead of rainy months.
"And the warnings must be perpetual, because people often forget [of a danger they've been warned about] when it doesn't happen for, say, two weeks," he said during an interview with BeritaSatu TV.
Suantika further suggested that village officers encourage patrols in their villages to anticipate catastrophe, especially during times when their neighborhoods are most vulnerable to landslides.
Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/most-of-indonesians-at-risk-of-landslides/