Nature Extracts Price From Those Who Live On the Ring of Fire

The Jakarta Globe, Anita Rachman, Nurfika Osman & Arientha Primanita

A mud-smeared shop displaying a closed sign in the Situ Gintung neighborhood in Tangerang, just outside Jakarta, after a dam collapsed in March, leading to the deaths of more than 100 people. (JG Photo/ Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

Sitting astride the “Ring of Fire,” a geologically unstable section of the earth’s crust below the Pacific Ocean, Indonesia receives deadly jolts from Mother Nature in the form of earthquakes and volcanoes with numbing regularity.

Inadequate infrastructure, torrential rains and other pressures also leave us at risk of disasters, which are made worse by human folly or error. Though 2009 was not as bad as some other years, many people were still left grieving for loved ones claimed by catastrophes ranging from powerful earthquakes to sunken ferry ships and broken dams.

The tragedies to remember:

January 11: After ignoring safety warnings, the passenger ferry MV Teratai Prima sinks off the coast of West Sulawesi near Majene district. The ship, carrying at least 267 people, was hit by large waves during a storm and capsized, killing nearly 240.

Overloading, a perennial problem on poorly regulated interisland ferries, was suspected to have contributed to the accident.

The Teratai Prima was en route from Pare-Pare to Samarinda in East Kalimantan. The captain of the ferry was cited for negligence and later sentenced to nine years in jail for actions that contributed to the loss of life. The captain was reported to have refused to heed warnings from the port authority about the coming storm prior to departure.

The 700-ton Teratai Prima also had a registered capacity of only 250 passengers and the precise number of people aboard was never determined; few bodies were recovered from the sea.

The waters off Majene were also the site of the crash of Adam Air flight 574 after it lost contact with ground control on Jan. 1, 2007.

March 27: The Situ Gintung dam near Jakarta collapses in the early morning, causing a massive torrent of water and debris to run downstream, killing more than 100 people.

A heavy downpour the previous night had caused the reservoir to begin overflowing and cracks to appear in the dam. At dawn, as people living behind the dam were still sleeping, the structure gave way. About 200 families lost their homes in the flash flood.

After the disaster, it was reported that cracks had begun appearing in the structure a year earlier but residents had not been warned of the danger. “We never expected the water to come like a tsunami, as happened on Friday morning,” said Wakidi, a community leader.

The dam in South Tangerang, Banten, was built by the Dutch colonial government in the 1930s. When it was first built, the reservoir covered 31 hectares, but due to siltation this fell to about 21 hectares.

Initially Situ Gintung was built to irrigate nearby farmland but as the area became residential, the dam functioned as a water conservation tool. Houses filled an area behind the dam that was intended to be a spillway.

Pitoyo Subandrio, the head of the Ciliwung-Cisadane Agency of the Public Works Ministry, has said that rehabilitation of the dam is under way.

September 2: A strong earthquake jolts West Java — and parts of Jakarta — leaving at least 33 people dead and more than 3,500 buildings damaged. The 7.0-magnitude quake hit off the southern coast of Java near the Tasikmalaya district.

Tasikmalaya was the area hardest hit by the tremors but West Java’s coastal areas, like Indramayu, Cianjur, Ciamis, Kuningan and Pengalengan, were also affected.

By year-end, many West Java quake survivors were still living in semipermanent structures, pending the reconstruction of their homes.

September 30: A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake strikes near the city of Padang on the West Sumatra coast, killing more than 1,000 people. The tremor destroys not only houses and buildings in Padang, but also devastates villages and towns in nearby areas.

Officials reported 1,195 dead. The greatest number of casualties were in the Padang Pariaman district, where 666 people died. In Padang itself, 383 people died. The total cost of damage caused by the quake was estimated to be at least Rp 4.8 trillion ($509 million), but some officials put the total at twice that figure, saying many vital public buildings would have to be rebuilt.

Search and rescue teams came to the area from around the nation and several countries. Indonesians also responded with an outpouring of donations for victims, many of whom were trapped under buildings that were not built to contemporary standards for surviving earthquakes.

The story of Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 20, a student, and Susi Revika Wulan Sari, a teacher, gripped television viewers when they were pulled from the wreckage of a school in Padang nearly two days after the quake.

Padang Deputy Mayor Mahyeldi Ansyarullah said that nearly 110,000 houses in Padang were damaged, 40,000 severely, and more than 1,000 classrooms were destroyed.

Both the local government and international aid workers noted that the emergency response to the Padang earthquake was an improvement over past disasters such as the 2004 tsunami in Aceh and the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake. Officials said that training exercises had paid off in terms of disaster response.

November 22: The Dumai Express 10 passenger ferry sinks in rough seas off Karimun Island in Riau Islands shortly after its sister ship, the Dumai Express 15, ran aground near Moro Island.

Forty of the 295 passengers aboard the Dumai Express died. The ferry had a registered capacity of 273.

None of the 278 passengers aboard the stranded Dumai Express 15 were killed.

The Dumai 10 was sailing from Batam to Dumai, while the Dumai 15 was sailing from Batam to Moro. The head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, Tatang Kurniadi, said the committee was investigating. “Sea transportation safety is one of Freddy’s priorities for his first 100 days in office,” Tatang said, referring to new Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi.