Research: Indonesia

Indonesia is the biggest country in South East Asian region, spans over 5.1 Million Square Kilometers. Stretching from Sabang to Merauke, and Nias to Rote Island, with 3.2 Million Square kilometers of water bodies, 1,919,440 square kilometers of land, making Indonesia the 15th Biggest Country in term of land mass. As an archipelago, Indonesia is a home to 17,000 islands (11,000 inhabited islands) with a 54,716 kilometers long coast line, over 210 million people, over 300 languages, with even more tribes and cultural community with Javanese and Sundanese to be the biggest ethnicity making up Indonesia. With the position of Indonesia just above the colission of Eurasian and Australian as well as Pacific Continents making Indonesia the tip of Pacific Ring of Fire where Volcanoes thrive. Hence from above we can extract most of the dangers that Indonesia could experience.

In Indonesia there are 3 main causes of flooding:

Unprecedented High Volume of Rain

When rain volume exceeded the ability of the reservoirs and the rivers there will be a rise in the water level of the area, which leads to the overflow of water, or flooding. The biggest reason of this is the urbanisation that happened in Indonesia, causing the lower income to stay at the river-side slumps narrowing down the river, which also caused the unprecedented building of huge concrete structures and roads, further preventing effective water absorption by the soil.

Danger level : Moderate, as the volume of rainfall could not be accurately predicted. This could result in the rapid increase in water level causing some people to not have time to fled their houses. However, often people are ready towards this kind of flooding due to the slow increase of water level.

Notable Disaster : 2002,2004 Jakarta Flooding, Bandung Flooding

Convex shaped Topology

Rain flows from higher ground to lower ground when there is a barricade of topology, water might not be able to flow out of the area. This would result in the flooding around these barricaded areas. There are some reasons: The failure of Urban Planning, Earthquake, as well as unstable ground.

Danger level: Low, as the topology would not be changed so much in a short period of time unless there was an earthquake. Hence, people are ready to flee their houses during a flooding.

Elevation in Sea Surface

The elevation of sea surface could cause the shoreline to recceed, in recent years, the threat of increasing sea level has caused a lot of low lying islands to be completely submerged in a dacade or two. However, the gravity pulls could also affect the sea level, and that often happened in Indonesia.

Danger level: Moderate, as the increase in gravity pull, could sometimes be unpredictable, hence there might be cases of people unable to flee their houses on time.

During Flooding

1. Move away from river channels.

2. Evacuate as soon as possible

3. Save valuable items to a higher place

4. Stop the electricity supply

5. Call over the authority when water level is heightening

Earthquakes are the tremors on earth's plate that have resulted on the collision of plates. The long collision line in Indonesia making Earthquake one of the most frequent disasters on Indonesian land.

Danger level : High, the movements of earth plates cannot be predicted accurately. Post Earthquake, buildings could fall and cause fires even further increase the casualties.

Notable disaster : Jogjakarta Earthquake

Possible Solution

1. Early Warning System

2. Earthquake Heatmap

3. Structures enforcements

4. Emergency Bag Preparation

Tsunami occurs when two plates collide at a relatively shallow ocean (<70km) of a magnitude more than 6.8 Richter Scale, with a convergent collision. Signs of a tsunami are; Earthquake, Recession of Shore Line, Rapid Wave towards the Shore.

Tsunamis in Indonesia:

1. 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

2. 2006 Pangandaran Tsunami

Danger level : Moderate, very few eathquakes causes Tsunami, however when it struck there is a high probability of mass death toll.

Possible Solution

1. Relocate and integrate existing river and channels

2. Pumps on the lower land topology

3. Regreening the reservoir area to increase water absorbance

Volcanoes arise from the heated crust of earth's plate, causing a build up in pressure and build up on volcanoes. Due to the long stretch of collision line, the number of volcanoes also is very high. Hence, there is a high number of volcanic eruptions.

Danger level : Moderate, very high level of unexpected follow-up disasters post-volcanic eruption, eg. pyroclastic flows.

Notable disasters : Mount Sinabung, Mount Merapi, etc.

Possible Solution

1. Bunkers

2. Mobile tent

3. Permanent Evacuation Site

4. Danger zone

Landslides are due to the unstable ground, where the ground are not held stably by the vegetation or the soil itself. The number of mountains and hills causes many landslides to happen in Indonesia.

Danger level : High, low possibility of predicting of landslides, past bad building planning.

Notable disasters : 2006 Centra Java Landslides

Possible Solution

1. Better building planning

2. Reforestation

With the high number of tribes and cultures, language and religions, there is a high level of possibility in the conflict of words, opinions, and beliefs.
Danger Level : Moderate, easily lit, however, preventable from education.

Notable disasters : Ambon Riot, 1995 Revolution

Possible Solution

1. Education

2. Empathy and Tolerance

These are the basic research of Indonesian disasters.

Hendriko