TSUNAMIS; SERIOUS ACTION NEEDED NOW

Playing the blame game                          

Early-warning buoys were either absent or broken when last Saturday’s tsunami roared through Selat Sunda, killing around 400, smashing villages and resorts.

Even if the devices had been present they’d have made no difference.  An undetectable freak undersea landslip sent the high-speed wave across the narrow strait, say geologists.

Measurable earthquakes cause most tsunamis, so buoys and other gear desperately need upgrading.  The tragedy has goaded the government with President Joko Widodo pledging on TV to review the budget for disaster readiness.

Welcome news for the Badan (Agency) Meteorologi, Klimatologi dan Geofisika (BMKG).  Its 2018 budget was around Rp 1.7 trillion (US $116 million). It claims more than double is needed to modernize the tsunami warning system.

Still not enough.  Experts urge a shake-up of all agencies along with an intensive and persistent public education campaign to help reduce deaths and destruction.

Starting point

Among the first outsiders to know of a natural disaster are the young scientists working in an eerie chamber on the second floor of BMKG’s Central Jakarta HQ.

This squats on the notorious 40,000 kilometer-long circle of Pacific coastlines; this Ring of Fire is where more than 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes spew terror, and their attendant quakes turn buildings to rubble.

At any one time at least six staff watch two giant screens cluttered with maps and quivering with ever-changing data 

If all sensors across the world’s largest archipelago and neighboring seas and lands are in place and working well, an earthquake will be reported within seconds.

A signal flashes to the circling 1.3 ton Himawari 8 Japanese satellite 36,000 kilometers above the Equator, then dives down to the BMKG.

An alarm shrills.  A stentorian voice speaks: ‘Attention, attention, attention.  Earthquake detected. Please check your data as soon as possible.’ 

In less than five minutes the staff must analyze the flood of information suddenly swamping their screens. 

Information engineers’ favorite saying is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If key data is unavailable or corrupted then decisions are also likely to be flawed.

No warnings came with the Selat Sunda tragedy, but the situation was different in Central Sulawesi. On the evening of Friday 28 September the system failed for the people of Palu.  So who was at fault?

Reform needed now

 

 

When it all starts to crumple a scapegoat has to be found.

Dr Dwikorita Karnawati knows this well.  After the magnitude 7.5 quake hit Palu, wagging fingers pointed at the head of BMKG for not ensuring her office had warned of the incoming five-meter high tsunami; the wave swept through the city killing 2,256, injuring double that number.

The damage bill has already reached Rp 13.82 trillion (US $911 million), according to Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana (BNPB - the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
In Indonesia’s bureaucracy handling calamities there’s an abundance of departments and ministries with confusing acronyms, most starting with the letter B; Karnawati has to negotiate with at least ten outside her own.
The UK-trained geological engineer and former Rector of Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University, was publicly pressured to resign by a Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat  (DPR -House of Representatives) commission which handles public works.
She refused.  “Unfortunately equipment which should have been turned on was not working,” she said.  “            We had to rely on data from elsewhere which didn’t show a tsunami of any magnitude.”
After the 2004 Indian Ocean wave which killed 228,000, most in the northwest Sumatra city of Banda Aceh, sensor buoys were launched to monitor ocean movements.  Their installation and maintenance was the responsibility of Badan Pengkajian dan Penerapan Teknologi, (BPPT - Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology).
During the following years there were reports of the buoys being vandalized and poorly maintained.
“They were not accessed by BMKG,” Karnawati said. “We considered tidal gauges more reliable.
“The one nearest Palu showed only a slight swell. Warning Receiver Systems (WRS) have been provided to the Local Authority Command Centers.  (WRS can be computers linked to the Internet, fax machines and phone lines.  All are susceptible to power failures.)

“The evacuation command can be activated only by the BNPB or its district counterparts after receiving the early warning from us.

“WRS must stay on for 24 hours every day. The ones in Palu had either been turned off or were not working. Phone and electricity lines were down so contact was impossible.

“We have no power beyond supplying information and warning.  Then it’s up to others.”

The most potent alert should have been the thumping earth, telegraphing residents to head for the hills.  Why didn’t more do so? 

Coping with complacency

A recent Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Malang had six uniformed off-duty flight attendants seated by mid-cabin exits.  Despite knowing the routines inside out, they were still publicly instructed by the crew on how to open the windows and deploy the slides.

Unnecessary?  Not to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the UN authority which sets emergency procedure rules.   No matter how experienced the passengers they still get lectured about seat belts, life rafts ‘and a whistle to attract attention’.

That’s not happening in Indonesia with natural disaster preparedness. According to the BNPB - in 2017 Indonesia had more than 2,300 floods, tornadoes and landslides.

Almost 400 people were killed or disappeared; more than a thousand were injured and 3.5 million displaced.

Bad though these were individually, they lacked the huge trauma of this year’s events that have triggered demands for better readiness.

“It’s different in Japan,” said geophysicist Tri Handayani,(left) who like many BMKG scientists has been trained in the East Asian nation.  

“The realization of danger is embedded in the culture from grandparents through to little children.  They all know what to do.”

Karnawati talks of 2008 as the “golden age” of awareness when citizens still remembered the Indian Ocean tsunami four years earlier.

And not just the survivors and victims’ families; politicians passed a raft of laws to create InaTEWS, the tsunami early warning system. 

Then people began to forget.  Budgets were trimmed and training courses given less attention.  Rigid rules became rubbery.

This despite the InaTEWS guidebook stating that knowing what to do ‘depends on the preparedness both of local institutions and communities at risk … who are obliged to analyze the tsunami risk, prepare tsunami contingency and evacuation plans’.

The law orders local authorities to implement instructions.  The rules even go down to the duties of hotel managers to explain escape routes to guests.

“If there’s no community engagement it’s very challenging for our warnings to turn into action,” Karnawati said. “Among the many problems is that leaders and officials constantly change; so do their policies.” 

Homes, shops and offices collapsed because they’d been badly built, or erected on unstable ground.
Natural hazards expert Professor Phil Cummins of the Australian National University worked on an aid program with Australian and Indonesian scientists updating the National Seismic Hazard Map. This underpins the building code.
“The problem is that the code is only applied and enforced for tall buildings (above eight floors) in Java,” he said.  “It should be used for a wider class of buildings but that could really drive up construction costs.”
The geological events that caused the quake and tsunami are still being researched but some academics, including Cummins, claim the death toll was not a failure of technology, but education and planning. 
Commented Associate Professor Adam Switzer, principal investigator at Singapore’s Earth Observatory: “No tsunami model could accurately provide a warning for what happened in Palu.
“The earthquake is the warning and people need to be educated to move quickly away from the coast or get to an elevated position as soon as the shaking stops.
“(Computer) tsunami models are very effective in places at a distance where the earthquake may not have been felt but a tsunami is heading in that direction. In the local sense like Palu the tsunami will be at your feet before the warning arrives.”
Karnawati said she’d technically broken the law by venturing into education. Her office has produced a limited edition of a thin brochure titled: What you should do before and after an earthquake. 
Although it has some cartoons it’s also text heavy. In New Zealand schoolchildren are simply taught to DROP (to the floor) COVER (with desk or chair) and HOLD - and to know evacuation routes.   Internationally the Great Shakeout earthquake drills keep the public alert.
More than 62 million participants in 62 countries have registered.  The Philippines has seven million, Mexico nine million and Iran 14 million. 
Indonesia, with more than 5,000 quakes a year and 26 million primary school students, has just 196 individuals involved.

The present surge in building roads and rails recalls last century’s exciting age of development.  The downside is that maintenance and equipment replacement requests from dull departments slip off the list of priorities.

Karnawati estimates BMKG requires Rp 3.5 trillion (US $241 million) to get the system working efficiently. (The 2018 budget is around Rp 1.7 trillion (US $116 million).

 “That’s needs, not wants;” she said.  “The money wouldn’t go on staff (she already has almost 5,000 across 31 centers in the archipelago) but modern equipment and training.

“The government is now preparing an additional budget for the enhancement of the existing Tsunami Warning System; this will more than double the 2018 budget allocation.”

 “The question is not that Rp 3.5 trillion will be enough, it’s how coastal communities can be better prepared,” responded Indonesian academic Dr Jonatan Lassa. He lectures in humanitarian emergencies and disaster management at Australia’s Charles Darwin University 

”Technical updates are necessities; this very much depends on negotiations by the upper-stream of InaTEWS plus politicians.

“Having solid sub-systems at the downstream end (communities), and the middle stream (local governments), is not yet in the minds of policy makers.

“What’s always neglected is community preparedness. So far we have only a few episodes of ‘unfinished reform’. Policy responses for a long-term solution are also slow. I can’t see how reform is taking shape.”

Karnawati stopped short of arguing for fewer agencies and more cooperation; these are policy issues and could unleash political pique if a bureaucrat ventured too far.  But she did say:

 “In my correspondence with ministers I always note that in the 1945 Constitution it’s the State’s role to protect the entire Indonesian nation.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 27 December 2018)

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THE POLITICS OF AID

WHEN GIVING AID, BE HUMBLE  

 

                          

In 2015 then PM Tony Abbott sought to save the lives of two convicted heroin traffickers.  He reminded Indonesians that Australians had given $1 billion in emergency aid and rehabilitation following the 2004 Aceh tsunami, so please show mercy.

He should have been better advised: Indonesians reacted angrily and made gestures of raising funds to repay.  Instead of softening attitudes, Abbott’s clumsy comments hardened President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s stand against what he called ‘foreign interference’.

The firing squad squinted down their sights at the pinioned Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to the cheers of Indonesians who saw the executions as asserting the nation’s sovereignty. The Republic would be no pushover by Western liberals going soft on drugs.

Three years on that tragic episode has been a factor in Jokowi’s early reluctance to admit that the devastation following the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami is so vast that the government needs external aid.

That’s now changed, though the legal situation regarding a ‘national disaster’ remains ambiguous. For some any outside help will be too late.

The tsunami hit Palu city on Friday 28 September; within hours it was clear this was a far bigger tragedy than the early August quakes in North Lombok, which killed almost 600. 

Indonesia’s services were still reeling from the first calamity so Australia and other nations promptly put up their hands.  The offers were unwanted, according to Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Panjaitan.

He was quoted as saying: ‘I don't think it's necessary to declare it a national disaster. What we are doing now is already more than enough.’

That was on the morning of Monday 1 October; by nightfall, following harrowing accounts of the size of the emergency, conflicting reports surfaced about the government allowing strangers to land their Hercules.

Even then gratitude was eclipsed by caution and conditions. Officials reminded that 117 countries had pledged aid after the Aceh tsunami but their activities were uncoordinated and often overlapped.  There had been tales of agencies trampling on local customs to build shelters and orphans being taken out of the country for adoption.

In 2007 a law was passed to control foreign aid during disasters.  This requires workers to be accompanied by local ‘security personnel’.

It’s difficult for many Australians to understand the strength of Indonesian nationalism and its twin, inferiority complex.  To ask for aid is seen as a slander on the state’s ability to care for its own.

In emergencies like big bushfires Kiwis, Canadians, Americans and others frequently rush to handle hoses Down Under, and few locals feel embarrassed.

It’s different next door. The 260 million citizens have all been raised on the story of the 17 August 1945 Declaration of Independence when the Japanese who’d occupied the Dutch East Indies surrendered.

The former colonialists ignored Soekarno’s proclamation and returned.  A four-year guerilla war followed which killed an estimated 100,000 Indonesians before the Dutch gave up.

Meanwhile the adjacent British colonies of Singapore and Malaya waited almost two decades for their negotiated freedom.

Yet these countries have rocketed ahead while Indonesia still struggles.  The contrast between orderly, modern and clean Singapore with polluted and chaotic Jakarta is stark.

Indonesia won self-rule through bloodshed, then suffered further through Soekarno’s economic mismanagement and cosying up to communism. Further pain came with his authoritarian successor Soeharto’s kleptocracy, and the 1998 financial and political crisis, which brought back democracy.

Indonesians know that many in nearby nations sneer privately, and it hurts.  News that the tsunami early-warning technology using ocean buoys had failed through vandalism and poor maintenance has roused shame and anger.

Abrasion points with Australia include memories of our involvement in the 1999 East Timor Referendum, NGOs continuing support for West Papuan autonomy, and public hostility towards Muslims, particularly by politicians.

Tim Lindsey, Director of Melbourne University’s Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, has written about Indonesia’s ‘brittle relationships’ with its neighbours and a rising ‘prickly defensive nationalism’.

In dealing with Indonesia, even on issues like providing humanitarian aid, it’s important to tread carefully.

According to Lindsey ‘rightly or wrongly (and often it is not our fault), it will be up to us to take the initiative to repair relations when things go wrong. Many Australians will, understandably, greatly resent this, but it is not a matter of fairness or reasonableness, just realpolitik.
 ‘The hard truth is that in the years ahead, keeping the bilateral relationship with Indonesia stable—for our own benefit—will, unfortunately, require Australia to work much harder to keep things nice, and perhaps more than it should.’



First published in Pearls and Irritations, 6 October 2018,  See: http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-when-giving-aid-be-humble/

RECORDING RESILIENCE

 RECOVERING FROM TRAGEDY 

Thank you for your interest in New Zealand’s support after the tsunami and the outstanding work that’s being done in Indonesia by GNS Science, and Noel’s book. 

It’s a tribute to the resilience and determination of the Indonesian people, and the Acehnese in particular.  These are also the qualities shown by the author (below) who has long been battling a serious illness.

Let’s start by going from the macro to the micro and our fridge in Wellington.  It’s probably like yours – a confetti shower of notes.  They include useful phone numbers, police, doctor, chemist and so on.

Also magnetised are reminders from the local council, the Earthquake Commission and other authorities on what to do in an emergency.

However the fridge in our kitchen in Malang in East Java has no such information; that’s not because police and the fire brigade don’t exist, but because they’re not trusted. 

An Indonesian proverb translates that if you go to the police to report the theft of a goat you’ll end up loosing a cow, meaning you’ll have to bribe to get action.

If you call an ambulance to get to hospital you’ll need a lot of money and even more patience.  It won’t be a speedy trip – expect to average less than 20 kilometres an hour.  There may be laws requiring motorists to give way to emergency vehicles but they are neither obeyed nor policed.

A helicopter evacuation, common in New Zealand?  The National Disaster Mitigation Agency has one to cover the whole archipelago of 17,000 odd islands.

In these circumstances people have to help themselves, just as our predecessors did before the state took over.  Some communities organise to provide support and aid known as gotong royong– in other places the residents are too transient.

The problem is that these groups are acting in isolation.  Their effectiveness, efficiency or existence depends on where you live and the energy of the volunteers.

Encountering these circumstances, people of goodwill in advanced nations like ours often want to get involved and push their government to help fund NGOs like this one in Central Java, which has been set up to support the stricken when disasters hit.

I’ve worked on a couple of Australian aid programs and believe they are not always the best way to assist.  In Malang a waste-treatment plant donated by the European community stands idle because no one has been trained to use the machine.

In another example delicate audiology equipment funded by a Rotary club to a hospital in East Java can’t be used because there’s no money to calibrate the apparatus.

A few years ago the NZ-Indonesia Association brought Dr Sari Timur the director of a Yogyakarta emergency service to Wellington to understand how we do things.  She saw the hospital base isolators, or quake breakers, something she’d never seen before.

We took her to the Police, the Health Department, Civil Defence and all the other organisations we depend upon.  She’s returned to Indonesia with a bag full of ideas.  She knows which ones will take root in that different environment.

We also learned from her that survival in an emergency doesn’t always need high-tech gear approved by Health and Safety.  Indonesians know how to improvise and Dr Sari passed on much useful knowledge.

Last year the Wellington Rehabilim Trust brought Bali paralympic athlete Nengah Widiasih to NZ to see facilities.  She visited organisations like Riding for the Disabled – something that apparently doesn’t exist in Indonesia.

She’s just won a silver medal in Kazakhstan; I like to think part of her success can be put down to being inspired by other disabled high achievers she met in this country.

GNS Science and other organisations have been involved in similar projects bringing professionals to NZ.

This is how I think we should be delivering aid, by helping key people come here and discover for themselves the way we operate so they can pick and chose what they import when they return.

In the audience tonight are Indonesian students who will be doing just that.  They’ve lived and studied here – many under NZ Government scholarships - and they know best what will and will not work in their homeland.

For our size we are a generous nation, but could do much more by adding more scholarships and freeing up our visa system.  There are work and holiday visas available to young Kiwis to spend time in Indonesia and vice versa.

Unfortunately the bureaucratic barriers are so great few have been able to participate.  It’s the same in Australia – and it’s a problem that needs fixing.

The NZ Indonesia Association continues to raise this issue with both countries because we believe that the most effective way of improving relationships is through ordinary people getting to know each other.

Official visits and big projects have their place – but nothing beats individual contacts and word of mouth. 

So when the students here go back to Jakarta, Surabaya or wherever, I hope they’ll tell their families and friends that Kiwis are decent and friendly folk who want to live in peace with their neighbours, and help when things go wrong.

We are not a NATO nation and the Indonesians here will understand the acronym – No Action, Talk Only.

This book by Noel and his colleagues is proof that we are people you can trust to do – not just debate - in times of crisis, wherever it happens.

(This speech was delivered at the launch of Aceh Revives by Dr Noel Trustrum at the Palmerston North Public Library on 21 July 2015. The book covers the recovery of Aceh following the Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.)

KUNTORO MANGKUSUBROTO

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto
Working as the hands of God Duncan Graham

At the time it was the toughest job in Indonesia.

Repair a landscape ripped raw by the world’s most extreme natural disaster; house the grief-torn survivors who’d lost more than 170,000 relatives, friends and neighbors; rebuild roads, bridges, ports, power stations, hospitals – all the infrastructure that makes cities function.

Manage a huge budget and be accountable to governments and NGOs in Indonesia and around the world.

Cope with the hostility, the prejudice, the deep-seated suspicions still virulent after 30 years of civil war, the jealousy, the angry confrontationists and the back-stabbers. Aceh was a tortured land drained of trust, particularly hostile towards Javanese from the central government.

That Kuntoro Mangkusubroto stayed the distance, achieved the goals and at 61 looks fresh enough to tackle another epic catastrophe indicates that the director of the Bureau of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Aceh and Nias (BRR) is a distinctly gifted human being – though he rejects this appraisal: “I’m just myself.”

Four years ago this Boxing Day a massive undersea earthquake off Aceh triggered a tsunami. Waves to 12 meters swept across 800 kilometers of coast and up to 1.6 kilometers inland.

It was a scene from Armageddon.

The world pledged US $7.2 billion and paid $6.7 billion. Thousands of aid workers flooded in with a multiplicity of agendas. Also lured were those who saw the chance to exploit the situation and milk the largesse.

Indonesia ranks 143 on the world’s corruption index and the cynics predicted much of the aid would never reach those hurting most, and that petty bureaucracy would destroy even the best intentioned and most resilient.

There has been some minor project-level corruption that’s being pursued, according to Kuntoro, but the BRR has not been infected. The agency’s accounts have been checked by international auditors and given an unqualified pass.

“We set up an internal anti-corruption unit, the first for any Indonesian government agency,” he said in Wellington, New Zealand. He was in the country to address a conference on disaster risk management and thank Kiwis for their aid. Like Australia, NZ was among the first countries to offer help.

“We developed new standards of accountability for Indonesia and in advance of many other countries.

“We encouraged everyone to blow the whistle if they saw anything amiss. They just had to send me an SMS. I asked my staff to pledge their honesty and promise never to take one penny they were not entitled to have.”

When President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hand picked the former Minister for Mines, business rescuer, company director, academic and civil engineer to take on the new BRR job in April 2005 Kuntoro dictated his terms.

They included ministerial ranking, direct access to the President (a privilege used only three times) and a salary three times larger than other ministers, an issue that drew much criticism.

“They were able to moonlight to supplement their salaries. I have no other income,” he said. “I do not take speaking fees or envelopes for anything I do.

“I fly economy class and not just to save money. At the back of the plane people talk to me and tell me what’s really happening. I thought this job was the chance given by God to touch the hands of the needy people, to go and do something good.

“Not many have that opportunity. Our success can be measured.”

Kuntoro said he draws his moral values and anti-corruption stand from his parents: “My father was a straight lawyer and my mother a professor of English.

“They brought me up to do good for other people, to be a good person, to be happy. We led a simple life. Although I started as a civil engineer (he was educated at Bandung Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the US), I fell in love with decision analysis.

“This discipline covers so many issues, but above all moral values are the most important. There are consequences to every action and the last defence is your conscience. You can compromise your strategy but never compromise your values.

“Have I been tempted? Many times, but it’s always like that. Life isn’t all about money. How does money relate to family, values and God?

“There were no how-to textbooks available for this job, no models of what to do. The task was so huge. I’ve had to face demonstrations and brutal words.

“Management was a nightmare. People blamed me for being too slow or not sensitive enough, but I had to remember they were the victims and had the right to blame.

“Twice I felt like giving up. I’m not too religious, but I believe. Yes. I trusted that we were sent by God to do this job. We are the extension of the hands of God and it is our duty.”

The first bureaucratic challenge came within hours of Kuntoro being sworn into office at the Presidential Palace. No one in the government would give him the money for airfares to Aceh because there was no system in place and it was a weekend.

The Australian aid agency AusAID stepped in with US $100,000 cash and Kuntoro and his team were able to get to ground zero. But there was no office or housing. Then the United Nations High Commission for Refugees gave the BRR space.

“I thought these things were God’s doing,” he said. “I was just the man in the middle.”

“When I chose staff I sought people of the highest integrity. I didn’t know them before. I asked if they were willing. If they said ‘yes’ they were employed. If they asked ‘how much?’ or ‘I’ll have to ask my boss’ then they were out.

“I have self confidence – some think I have too much. A good manager must have guts and be self reliant, have a nothing-to-lose attitude. You will make mistakes. The art is in solving problems at the lowest cost, to create harmony and make unbiased judgements, to get results.”

In April the BRR vanishes from everything except the history books. One of these will be written by Kuntoro unless he’s headhunted to fix another crisis.

In material terms the BRR has changed Aceh for the better. Much good has come from much horror.

More than 93 per cent of the job has been done. People are back farming and fishing. Traffic chaos has returned. The roads are bituminised, the bridges sturdy, the 125,000 new houses hygienic, the public buildings of a standard better then other provinces. Visa, work permit and import clearance procedures have been streamlined and accelerated, delivered through a one-stop shop.

Land titles now include the wife’s name ensuring her security should her husband die – a reform yet to spread to other provinces. National whistle-blower laws are being considered.

The templates for business and departmental propriety are there for other agencies and managers to pick up – if they so desire. Could corruption be eliminated and Indonesia rank high among the world’s clean countries?

Kuntoro, normally master of the snappy response, paused: “Yes. But only if there’s the political will.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post on Boxing Day 2008)
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DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT

Disaster management – making the mess less © Duncan Graham 2008

How do two nations celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations? To play it safe stage a traditional cultural event with a lushness of finger-flicking maidens swirling batik and rolling their enticing eyes.

Thirty minutes of gamelan gonging and it’s all over for another half century.

That’s not the way it will be next month (Aug) when Indonesia and New Zealand recognise five decades of a mostly harmonious and relatively stable marriage. Instead a clutch of Kiwis will fly to Jakarta, Aceh and Yogyakarta to share skills on disaster risk management at a conference that’s expected to attract up to 200 participants and impact on nearby nations.

This isn’t a topic for fatalists who believe there’s nothing that mortals can do when the wrath of a vengeful Deity is unleashed, punishing the faithless and tormenting the transgressors with tsunami, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Those who take a more scientific view argue that many things can be done to prepare, though not always to prevent, natural disasters. Their key word is ‘mitigation’, not earthquake-proofing.

“ We’ve got some real skills here in NZ, developed over the years,” said civil engineer Dr David Hopkins, co-leader of the 21-strong Kiwi contingent.

“We have a different attitude - we work with people; we enjoy rolling up our sleeves. Let’s see if we can make a real difference here, not trying to do everything but working in specific areas of expertise because we’re a small country with limited resources.”

Decoded this means NZ can’t compete against big-donor nations like Japan and the US so has to deliver quality, not quantity.

Hopkins, a specialist in earthquake risk management, looks differently at disaster photos, like those from China’s Wenchuan earthquake in May. While most of us gape at the damage he seeks out the constructions that have survived. Then he wonders why.

In most cases the upright buildings have been robustly built using top materials and following best practices. These included steel reinforcement of concrete, cross bracing walls and no heavy loads at high levels. Critical is the use of materials that can flex not fracture, sway not crumple.

Inevitably the cost is initially higher, which is why some are built to lower standards and building inspectors are bribed to ignore non-compliance with regulations.

This isn’t rocket science; Hopkins knows that Indonesian authorities are just as well read on the building codes that have been developed in NZ, Japan, California and other unsteady locations. The problem is getting the rules implemented. To make his point he employs the image of a skyhook using a chain to hold a huge weight above the people.

“Each link is critical,” he said. “We’re very good at strengthening the strong links but not so good at looking at the weak.”

The idea of discussing disaster risk management to celebrate the 50 years of diplomatic relations came from Amris Hassan the Indonesian ambassador to NZ who lives in Wellington, one of the world’s most shaky capitals.

Three faults run north and south through the harbor and city of about 500,000 people. Wellington is also the center of government and the parliament so if disaster strikes the nation’s leaders would be among the victims. Managing the risks is treated seriously and the city has become a center of excellence in earthquake research.

An audit of public and private buildings recently found hundreds needed strengthening and the work is underway. A technique called ‘base isolation’ using rubber and lead blocks between the foundations and beams of old buildings was pioneered in NZ.

Few Kiwis can be unaware that their land is dangerous. The government has a Minister of civil defence and emergency management who will be at the conference.

As former NZ prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer said: “It does us a power of good to remind ourselves that we live on two volcanic rocks where two tectonic plates meet, in a somewhat lonely stretch of windswept ocean just above the Roaring Forties. If you want drama - you've come to the right place.”

The last major earthquake in Wellington was in 1855, but there have been several recent disasters nearby. Gisborne on the east coast of the North Island was hit on 20 December 2007 causing considerable damage. NZ gets about 14,000 quakes a year; like Indonesia it’s part of the Pacific Rim of Fire.

Hopkins worked for almost a year in Turkey looking at apartment blocks. He expected fatalism but was “mind-bogglingly overwhelmed” by the positive response to ideas of mitigating the impact of natuiral disasters.

His message to public officials, builders and developers is to ask: “Do you have a defensible position?”

“This means asking if you’ve identified the hazards and potential damage,” he said. “You must have taken all reasonable steps prior to the event to reduce its impact under the four Rs of emergency management – Reduction, Readiness, Response and Recovery.

“You won’t be doing enough to be in a defensible position until you examine these issues seriously and develop a sensible action plan that balances the risks, funding constraints and community expectations.”

Geomorphologist (landforms scientist) Dr Noel Trustrum, the other co-leader of the conference, spent time in Aceh after the 2004 tsunami identifying projects where NZ know-how could be of use. He focussed on the Sumatran highlands where heavy clearing had threatened water supplies.

“We want to marry NZ expertise with Indonesian experience,” he said. “NZ is best at doing what’s absolutely necessary, not looking for Rolls Royce solutions. For example twisting reinforcing iron a different way can be significant.

“The Bureau of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (BRR) hands over to local and regional governments after April next year and there is still a lot of unspent money.

(The Indonesian government created the BRR to coordinate reconstruction after the tsunami. Dr William Sabandar, the BRR regional director for Nias, was educated in NZ.)

“We want to maintain relationships with Indonesia and together look beyond to helping in South-East Asia and the Pacific.”

(The conference opened at the Hotel Borobudur in Jakarta on 5 August.)

(First published in the Jakarta Post Tuesday 29 July 08)

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RESEARCHING NATURAL TRAGEDIES

Coping with big scale tragedy © Duncan Graham 2008

What makes one society more resilient in the face of catastrophe than another?

Why do some people stoically accept the awful things that happen when they encounter the unleashed energies of nature? Some regard such events as a trial by a testing god; others rail against the elements and curse the uncontrollable forces that released them. Many are just left numb.

New Zealand doctoral student Heather Taylor will probe these and other tricky but critical questions in Indonesia and NZ during the next three years.

“Many other research studies on the capacity to adapt to major tragedies have focused on Western populations,” she said.

“I want to know if there are universal traits that indicate the capacity of a community to cope. If these traits do exist and can be identified then non-government agencies (NGOs) and others can use this information in the way they allocate their resources.

“For example, if we know that one society can better handle a tragedy and look after themselves to some extent, then the NGO’s energies can be focused on communities that don’t respond well.”

In April Taylor will start her studies by traveling to the west coast Sumatra island of Nias that was smashed by a massive earthquake in 2005 killing 800 and injuring 2,000. The superstitious must have wondered what they’d done wrong because Nias was also a victim of the December 2004 tsunami.

Taylor will also study in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta that was horrendously damaged by a massive shaking in 2006 with the loss of 6,000 lives, and West Sumatra that was hit twice last year, in March and September.

Fortunately Taylor, 24, hasn’t had any ghastly personal tragedy to drive her into this unusual research. She hasn’t had to outrun an avalanche of mud or flee a forest furnace, but she does come from a family that believes it has a duty to channel its abilities to the benefit of humanity.

“I have a science background and I want to use my education to help people,” she said. “I hope to develop the skills to interpret science to policy makers in a language they can understand. There has to be a balance between technical and cultural knowledge.”

Her father is an Australian engineer working for an international Christian organisation and her mother is a nurse who was born in Ethiopia.

Taylor was born in Canada and studied to become a geological engineer. This is the profession that advises major mining ventures on the best place to dig or avoid, and the dangers that might result.

After graduating she worked on a big iron-ore mine in Western Australia before moving to NZ to further her studies.

Like Indonesia, NZ is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically unstable zone of shifting tectonic plates deep underground and magna boiling to the surface.

NZ, also known as the Shaky Isles, seems to be forever trembling. If you check www.geonet.org.nz you’ll find a list of the latest rumbles, and can let the authorities know if they’ve missed any. As there are about 14,000 every year with around 150 serious it’s always possible that the experts haven’t noticed the earth move while they’re taking a coffee break.

(Most information on Indonesian earthquakes has been compiled by authorities overseas.)

Taylor has won a NZ $90,000 (Rp 650 million) grant to do her PhD through Massey University’s school of psychology. Her homeland has ice storms and floods but is relatively stable, so there’s little need to worry about skyscrapers coming down to earth or to study the phenomena.

NZ takes natural disasters seriously. There aren’t too many high rises; in the capital Wellington, that straddles three major fault lines, timber is the preferred building material. In the big Yogya quake that destroyed 1.5 million homes, the families who survived were often living in houses made of wood or bamboo.

Taylor is reluctant to predict exactly which way her research will go, but recognizes that NZ has a well-developed system of building regulations, alerts, emergency routines and other systems to help minimize damage and injury from natural disasters. These management tools may well be of use to Indonesia.

The NZ Earthquake Commission provides rapid relief and covers damage caused by earthquakes, landslips, volcanic eruptions, tsunami and hydrothermal activity to people who are insured.

But there are restraints on transferring expertise across cultures. Taylor said that most overseas aid comes from Western nations with different ideas and values. She would not be drawn on recent controversies where some agencies have allegedly tried to package Christianity, feminism and other Western values along with emergency building materials and water pumps.

Then there are the tales of corruption, with aid allegedly diverted into the pockets of government authorities to the great fury of donors. Another factor that may work itself into her research are the motives behind outsiders giving money or rushing to help. What emotional and attitudinal baggage are they carrying in the back of their white four-wheel drives, bouncing across rubble-strewn landscapes?

“It often becomes the case that the international NGOs are coming from a different culture and are unfamiliar with the culture they’re entering,” Taylor said.

“I want to understand the qualities of communities and individuals that withstand natural disasters. Is it their ethnicity, their religious beliefs, their past experiences, their economic background?

“I hope my research will lead to better ways for NGOs to handle big crises. I want to try and avoid the political traps. In the end it’s not what you do but how you do it.

“You can get the technology right, but if you mess up on the social side you’ll get nowhere.

“I come from a background within an NGO because of my family. But don’t write me up as a naïve young researcher out to save the world. Hopefully I’ll be able to change attitudes from being superior and paternalistic so that NGOs can do things better as partners with communities.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 19 Feb 08)

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