The Message Behind the Disasters

Kompas/Danial Ade Kurniawan

Local residents and members of a joint team clear thick mud from the road and residents’ houses on Sunday (25/2) in Cikaray, one of the hamlets severely affected by the landslide on Feb. 22 in Pasirpanjang, Salem, Brebes, Central Java. More than 40 houses in Cikaray hamlet were buried in mud, logs and branches.

Over the last three days, news about landslide and flood disasters have made headlines in this newspaper. Disasters always convey messages about human behavior.

Landslides in Brebes, Central Java, on Friday, Feb. 23, led to the deaths of seven people, while 13 remain missing. This newspaper also wrote that the causes of the landslides varied, ranging from high rainfall, steep topography, to low levels of awareness among the residents on how to preserve the environment and anticipate disasters. We cannot blame high rainfall because it is an uncontrollable natural event. What we have to change are the behaviours of the residents themselves.

After the landslides occurred, floods caused by the overflowing of Cisanggarung River on the Cirebon-Brebes border inundated the northern coast of Java, paralyzing a number of train journeys, a number of agricultural centers and several sections of the Kanci Toll Roads.

We need to raise the issue of natural disasters amid the hustle and bustle that is the power struggles of the 2018 regional elections and 2019 general elections. We also want to encourage prospective regional and national leaders to really consider models of sustainable development — development that pays close attention to the carrying capacity of the environment.

Natural disasters have always been in-between events. They happened in the past, they are happening at present, and they have the potential to happen in the future. The thing is, we never learn from the disasters that happen. How should we live in disaster-prone areas? How do city development policies take into consideration the carrying capacity of the environment?

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has said that landslides were deadliest type of disaster, with 1,841 casualties recorded over the last 10 years (Kompas, Feb. 14, 2018). The BNPB also recorded that 40.9 million people, or 17.2 percent of Indonesia\'s population, live in landslide-prone areas. As forests continue to be cleared, and development is pursued without any consideration for the carrying capacity of the environment, we fear that natural disasters caused by human behavior will occur more frequently.

Against this background we would like to invite the political elite to take a serious look at this vulnerability. In light of the BNPB’s finding that 40.9 million people live in landslide-prone zones, what policies will the government offer for residents in these areas. Relocation is the last resort because it is also not easy. However, any construction should not be undertaken arbitrarily, without paying attention to the carrying capacity of the environment.

The political elite must be aware that their current behavior and development policies will determine the fate of Indonesia in the future. We certainly do not want “Indonesia Gold” in 2045 — when the Republic of Indonesia is 100 years old — to be an anxious generation because of the weakened carrying capacity of the environment.