Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Indonesia reeling from deadly earthquake
By: Melissa Filbin
The Battalion (Texas A&M)
06/01/2006

(U-WIRE) COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A young earthquake victim eats breakfast near his destroyed home in Bantul, Indonesia Monday. Saturday's 6.3-magnitude quake on Java Island killed 6,234 people and injured more than 30,000, Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry said.

Nearly a year and a half since a tsunami ravished Southeast Asia in December 2004, those in Indonesia are feeling the effects of yet another natural disaster.

As of Wednesday, no Texas A&M students were affected directly by the earthquake.

One former student doing graduate studies at a university on Java Island, was not on the island at the time of the earthquake and is safe.

Medicines, rice, water and tarps were delivered to Indonesia's earthquake disaster zone Wednesday to help about 650,000 displaced people, but many said the international aid was taking too long to get there.

The United Nations said the crisis appeared to be easing with the arrival of aid workers from more than 20 countries, and Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said he had enough confidence in the relief efforts to return to the capital, Jakarta.

"Certainly, a lot more needs to be done," Yudhoyono said.

But he said roads had been cleared, the main airport's runway repaired and reopened and electricity restored in some areas.

Erika Benyamin, president of the Indonesian Student Association at Texas A&M, said the earthquake came as a shock, even though the public was forewarned it might happen because of the volcano, Mount Merapi, which also threatens the area.

"For me personally, that's sad because the ones that are affected are pretty poor and pretty far out where help is difficult to reach," she said. "We're all affected; we're all concerned. Not only for the health and the well being (of the people), but that they are getting the money and the help they need."

Benyamin, a senior industrial engineering major, said the Indonesian Student Association is sending donations to the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

"If people are willing to donate money and looking for a good reliable source, they should go to www.indonesiarelief.org," she said.

Java is a deeply historical place, Benyamin said. It houses Indonesia's largest university, the University of Gadjah Mada, located in Yogyakarta, a city and province on the island of Java, he said.

"The people there are very cultured, and they are very soft spoken," said Benyamin, who visited Yogyakarta in 1999.

The temblor that struck soon after dawn Saturday reduced more than 135,000 houses to piles of brick, tile and wood in less than a minute, displacing some 647,000 people, said Bambang Priyohadi, a provincial official.

Infrastructure

In a major earthquake, there is always damage, said Mary Beth Hueste, an associate professor and assistant division head in structural engineering; however, the key is to make sure structures do not collapse.

One way to achieve that is by tying the structure together so there is a continual load pass, Hueste said.

"For example, if force is generated at the roof, it needs to be taken down through the walls and into the foundation of the structure," she said. "I suspect a lot of the damage was due to older construction not being as good in terms of resisting earthquake forces."

Construction practices vary worldwide, Hueste said.

"In Indonesia, it looks like they had a lot of wood construction and a lot of masonry rubble," she said. "We know masonry is very brittle, and if it's not reinforced it's going to fall away from the structure."

There are small, inexpensive things in terms of anchoring a building that can be done to reinforce a structure, if the government or the public decides it is a priority, Hueste said.

"The main thing is to provide guidance to people and help them to do it," she said. "A lot of that is about education and finding ways that are not cost prohibitive."

In the United States, building codes are usually more stringent in areas more susceptible to earthquakes, Hueste said.

However, some parts of the country are at risk, such as Memphis, Tenn., which lies on the New Madrid fault line, but has not had a major earthquake in 200 years.

"So the society is not thinking about an earthquake on a day-to-day basis," she said. "Even though building codes require stringent regulations, there is still some resistance to changing — sometimes, unfortunately, until disaster happens the risk is not taken seriously."

Building codes are continuing to improve, as research is implemented in the codes and the effect of earthquakes are studied, Hueste said.

Recovery

Walter Gillis Peacock, director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, said recovery efforts were helped by the fact that many international agencies propositioned aid, because of the volcano also threatening the area.

However, difficulties in working with local governments often delay relief efforts, he said.

"A lot of it becomes political as well as logistical," he said.

-The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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