Background Information

• Population approx 238 million (2018)

• Capital city Jakarta (not affected by the earthquake)

• Archipelago of volcanic islands located in the Pacific Ocean in east Asia

• One of the MINT countries - rapidly expanding economy (and population)

• High degree of vulnerability despite awareness of tectonic risk

• Emotional attachment to country - belief that volcanoes + earthquakes are retribution for behaviour of people

• 28th September 2018 - 21:00

Cause

• 10km off coast - close to city of Palu on island of Sulawasi

• Magnitude 7.5 Mw

• Believed to be a subduction plate boundary - scientists determining exact nature of plate movements

• Now thought to be slip/strike parallel movement - conservative plate boundary - triggered a landslide - displaced water

• Ground shaking (primary effect) - caused tsunami (secondary effect) - up to 6m high

• Shape of bay increased wave height - funnelled the water inland

• Liquefaction (secondary effect) occurred - soft sediments +high moisture content - very significant hazard - cause of more buildings collapsing - people buried alive in mudflows

• Movement of ground damaged infrastructure

Effects

• Approx 4,400 people dead - collapsed buildings, tsunami

• Approx 2,549 injured

• At least 1.6 million affected

• Airport damaged - slowed aid, recovery

• Roads blocked - made aid + recovery challenging

• Approx 70,000 homes destroyed

• 90,000 displaced - sleeping in temporary shelters provided by NGOs

• Water + food supplies ran out within 24 hours

• 20,000 in need of emergency aid

• 170,000 homeless + in need of aid 6 months later

• Disease outbreak - contaminated water sources + decomposing bodies - mass cremations

• Recovery called off on 11th December - dealing with dead body parts was exposing people to disease

• Remaining bodies remain buried in ground and rubble of buildings

Mitigation

• Government criticised - did not maintain tsunami warning - put in place after “004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean tsunami

• Building regulations in place since 2002 (pending since 1964) - EDC - difficult to implement - Roa Roa Hotel collapsed due to ground shaking - relatively new - suggests building regulations not complied with

• Questions over why airport control tower collapsed

Responses

• Indonesian government declared disaster - requested international aid - 2 daysafter event

• At least 20 countries + many NGOs provided aid

• UK Government donated £3 million - also sent aid - 1,280 shelter kits - 288 hygiene kits - pledged to match UK public donations up to £2 million

• 10,000 involved in rescue operation - called off after 10 days

• Disaster Emergencies Committee (DEC) launched emergency appeal coordination across charities and NGOs

• Individual charities - Oxfam - launched fundraising - messages across social media - bank cashpoints in UK prompted customers to donate

• Asian Development Bank granted $1 billion in loans - useful, but will have to be paid back

• United Nations granted $5 million in aid - assist with rebuilding - estimated 2 years to recover

• Indonesia has less resilience to tectonic hazards than AC’s such as Japan

Wider Reading

• People struggled to ger help in mountain areas - landslides buried houses - made roads impassable

• Took a week for aid to arrive in Kulawi - supplied by a military helicopter - made only sporadic visits

• Residents have to wait until all 12 metric tonnes of rice has arrived to everyone can receive supplies at same time

• Everyone in area living in tents

• Hospitals overwhelmed - many people being treated open air

• Tsunami struck at a speed of 800kmph

• People climbed 6 meter high trees to escape

• Cargo planes carrying doctors and aid sent to join rescue efforts

• Getting aid to effected places difficult due to damaged roads