Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – The saying "home sweet home" no longer applies to Sijeruk residents in the Central Java town of Banjarnegara, who lost most of their property after a massive mudslide buried their village last week.
"I will never return home again. I will move to a safer village," said Sutarno, who lost 11 of his relatives. They are among dozens of people who are believed to have been buried alive in the mud.
The search for bodies ended on Saturday after 58 bodies had been recovered.
Dulhadi, 53, also said he would never go back to his village and asked the local administration to resettle him and his neighbors.
Banjarnegara authorities have responded to the demand, allocating between 3 hectares and 5 hectares of land and Rp 12 billion (US$1.25 million) to relocate the victims. The land is two kilometers away from the disaster site.
Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director Chalid Mohammad, however, said resettlement would be ineffective if it was not comprehensive in nature.
Based on an analysis of satellite images and field checks, Walhi says there have been widespread changes to land use allocations in the disaster area, indicating violations of the local spatial planning.
Therefore, Chalid urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to order governors, regents and mayors to declare disaster analysis and environment management mandatory elements of the spatial planning conducted by their administrations.
"Walhi has written to the President expressing concern about the violation of land use regulations," he said.
In its letter, a copy of which was made available to The Jakarta Post, Walhi urges the head of the state to avoid resettlement programs that would actually lead to further suffering, such as transmigration.
The Volcanological and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center had earlier revealed that over 100 districts in 50 regencies on Java island were prone to large-scale landslides, including the area around Sijeruk village.
Director of the center, Yousana Oloan P. Siagian, said maps had been sent to regional administrations last year to serve as references for reviews of their spatial plans.
When asked whether the disasters in Jember and Banjarnegara were the result of the local administrations' failure to heed the warning, Yousana refused to comment.
"Our job is mainly to disseminate information," he said on Friday after a meeting with Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie to discuss the setting up of a disaster early warning mechanism.
Executive Director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), Indro Sugianto, urged the government to amend the Environment Protection Law (No.23/1997) so as to permit the Office of the State Minister for the Environment to review spatial plans drawn up by local administrations.
"The government should also revise the present Spatial Planning Law to protect the country's environment and the lives of its people," he said.
(With additional reporting from Slamet Susanto and Blontak Poer in Banjarnegara)