ANALYSIS: By Dr Vannessa Hearman

When the earthquake and tsunami hit the city of Palu, Central Sulawesi, last weekend, they not only brought wreckage and death. The twin disasters also swept away efforts by activists and the municipal administration to support the survivors of Indonesia’s violent anti-communist purges in 1965-1966.

In the rest of the country, such survivors are still very marginalised.

In Palu, a city of some 350,000 inhabitants and the capital of Central Sulawesi province, activists had convinced local government leaders to work with them in helping these survivors.

READ MORE: One week on, Palu quake survivors begin to worry about the future

Palu is the only place in Indonesia where a government leader has made an official apology to the victims of the anti-communist violence in the area. Some nine days after the devastating natural disaster, the fate of some of those activists is still unknown.

Indonesian people lived under Suharto’s New Order authoritarian regime between 1968 and 1998, when the president was forced to resign. From 1965-66, the army, under Suharto, spearheaded anti-communist operations that killed half a million people and led to the detention of hundreds of thousands.

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The army blamed Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI) for the murder of seven army officers on the night of 30 September and in the early hours of 1 October, 1965, by a group calling itself the Thirtieth September Movement. The 53rd anniversary of these events coincided with the terrible disaster in Central Sulawesi.

The Palu earthquake and tsunami aftermath … fate of many 1965-1966 “purge” human rights activists unknown. Image: Tempo – Search for quake, tsunami victims to stop on Thursday as death toll tops 1760

In 2012, the Palu mayor, Rusdy Mastura, apologised to the victims of the anti-communist violence. He pledged to provide assistance to them and their families in the interests of “equality, openness and humanitarian considerations”.

In his speech, Mastura recalled how, as a boy scout in 1965, he had been tasked with guarding leftist detainees.

Victims of abuses
Mastura was speaking at an event organised by local human rights group, SKP-HAM (Solidaritas Korban Pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia, Solidarity with Victims of Human Rights Abuses).

SKP-HAM was founded in 2004. Its best-known leader is the dynamic secretary, Nurlaela Lamasitudju, the daughter of local Islamic cleric, Abdul Karim Lamasitudju.

SKP-HAM is part of the national Coalition for Truth and Justice (Koalisi Pengungkapan Kebenaran dan Keadilan, KKPK).

In 2012, the KKPK held several public events and community “hearings”, dubbed the “Year of Truth Telling”, to pressure the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to rehabilitate the victims of the violence.

In April 2012, Yudhoyono was reported as having expressed his intention to apologise to victims of human rights abuses committed during the Suharto New Order regime.

Yudhoyono’s promised apology never materialised. However, the “Year of Truth Telling” events yielded some important gains in Palu.

Following his apology, the SKP-HAM lobbied Mastura to deliver on his promises by providing healthcare and scholarships. A mayoral regulation and a Regional Action Plan for Human Rights (Rencana Hak Asasi Manusia, Ranham) were promulgated to enable this.

Autonomy laws
These local government instruments have been made possible through Indonesia’s regional autonomy laws.

The mayoral regulation also established a committee to oversee human rights protection and restoration of victims’ rights. On May 20, 2013, Palu was declared a “Human Rights Aware City”.

Each year, the city holds a series of human rights-related events.

In May 2015, the Palu City Regional Planning Body oversaw the process of checking and verifying the identity of victims and their needs, using the information compiled by human rights groups as a base.

A trailblazing city
SKP-HAM had collected 1200 testimonies about the 1965-66 violence from victims in the area. From these testimonies, it had created and uploaded to YouTube short films of survivors’ testimonies.

It had also published a book about the 1965-66 events in Sulawesi, in collaboration with Indonesian author, Putu Oka Sukanta. Mastura wrote the book’s preface.

The group supported weaving cooperatives involving women survivors and ran a café and meeting space, Kedai Fabula, at its office in Palu. In partnership with religious groups and the municipal administration, members of the group organised social activities to involve abuse survivors in the life of the city.

The activities of SKP-HAM Palu is a reminder of what has been lost. It was a trailblazing city whose achievement in human rights advancement provided a model for the rest of the country.

The people of Palu, with a great deal of assistance, will rebuild, but we still wait for more news from the city.

SKP-HAM leader, Lamasitudju, survived the earthquake and tsunami. With a sprained ankle and having lost several family members in the disaster, she is volunteering to collect and provide information regarding the situation in Palu.

Indonesia needs groups like SKP-HAM that campaign for inclusiveness and equal rights to survive into the future.

Dr Vannessa Hearman is a lecturer in Indonesian studies at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory. She is a member of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Council. Charles Darwin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU. Asia Pacific Report republishes this article under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The magnitude 7.5 earthquake, and subsequent tsunami, that struck Indonesia days ago has resulted in at least 1,200 deaths.

Authorities are still gauging the extent of the damage, but it is clear the earthquake and tsunami had a devastating effect on the Sulawesi region, particularly the city of Palu.

It’s not the first time earthquakes have caused mass destruction and death in Indonesia. The tsunamis that follow are particularly damaging. But why?

READ MORE: Would a better tsunami warning system have saved lives in Sulawesi?

A combination of plate tectonic in the region, the shape of the coastline, vulnerable communities and a less-than-robust early warning system all combine to make Indonesian tsunamis especially dangerous.

Poorly understood
Indonesia covers many complex tectonic environments. Many details of these are still poorly understood, which hampers our ability to predict earthquake and tsunami risks.

The biggest earthquakes on Earth are “subduction zone” earthquakes, which occur where two tectonic plates meet.

In December 2004 and March 2005, there were a pair of subduction zone earthquakes along the Sunda Trench offshore of the west coast of Sumatra. In particular, the magnitude-9.1 quake in December 2004 generated a devastating tsunami that killed almost a quarter of a million people in countries and islands surrounding the Indian Ocean.

But only looking out for these kinds of earthquakes can blind us to other dangers. Eastern Indonesia has many small microplates, which are jostled around by the motion of the large Australia, Sunda, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates.

The September quake was caused by what’s called a “strike-slip” fault in the interior of one of these small plates. It is rare – although not unknown – for these kinds of quakes to create tsunamis.

The fault systems are rather large, and through erosion processes have created broad river valleys and estuaries. The valley of the Palu river, and its estuary in which the regional capital Palu is located, have been formed by this complex fault system.

Studies of prehistoric earthquakes along this fault system suggests this fault produces magnitude 7-8 earthquakes roughly every 700 years.

Sea floor shapes wave
Another important factor for tsunamis is the depth and shape of the sea floor. This determines the speed of the initial waves. Strong subduction zone earthquakes on the ocean floor can cause the entire ocean water column to lift, then plunge back down.

As the water has momentum, it may fall below sea level and create strong oscillations.

The bulge of water moving outward from the centre of a earthquake maybe of limited height (rarely much more than a metre), but the mass of water is extremely large (depending on the surface area moved by the earthquake).

Tsunami waves can travel very fast, reaching the speed of a jet. In water 2km deep they can travel at 700k/hour, and over very deep ocean can hit 1000km per hour.

When the wave approaches the shallower coast, its speed decreases and the height increases. A tsunami may be 1m high in the open ocean, but rise to 5-10m at the coast. If the approach to the shoreline is steep, this effect is exaggerated and can create waves tens of metres high.

Despite the fact that the waves slow down near the coast, their immense starting speeds mean flat areas can be inundated for kilometres inland.

The ocean floor topography affects the speed of tsunami waves, meaning they move faster over deep areas and slow down over submarine banks. Very steep land, above or below water, can even bend and reflect waves.

More intense, deadly
The coastlines of the Indonesian archipelago are accentuated, in particular in the eastern part and especially at Sulawesi. Palu has a narrow, deep and long bay: perfectly designed to make tsunamis more intense, and more deadly.

This complex configuration also makes it very difficult to model potential tsunamis, so it’s hard to issue timely and accurate warnings to people who may be affected.

The safest and simplest advice for people in coastal areas that have been affected by an earthquake is to get to higher ground immediately, and stay there for a couple of hours. In reality, this is a rather complex problem.

Hawaii and Japan have sophisticated and efficient early warning systems. Replicating these in Indonesia is challenging, given the lack of communications infrastructure and the wide variety of languages spoken throughout the vast island archipelago.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster, international efforts were made to improve tsunami warning networks in the region. Today, Indonesia’s tsunami warning system operates a network of 134 tidal gauge stations, 22 buoys connected to seafloor sensors to transmit advance warnings, land-based seismographs, sirens in about 55 locations, and a system to disseminate warnings by text message.

However, financing and supporting the early warning system in the long term is a considerable problem. The buoys alone cost around US$250,000 each to install and US$50,000 annually for maintenance.

The three major Indonesian agencies for responsible for earthquake and tsunami disaster mitigation have suffered from budget cuts and internal struggles to define roles and responsibilities.

Models insufficient
Lastly, the Palu tsunami event has highlighted that our current tsunami models are insufficient. They do not properly consider multiple earthquake events, or the underwater landslides potentially caused by such quakes.

No early warning system can prevent strong earthquakes. Tsunamis, and the resulting infrastructure damage and fatalities, will most certainly occur in the future. But with a well-developed and reliable early warning system, and better communication and public awareness, we can minimise the tragic consequences.

With earthquakes that occur very close to the beach – often the case in Indonesia – even an ideal system could not disseminate the necessary information quickly enough. Indonesia’s geography and vulnerable coastal settlements makes tsunamis more dangerous, so we need more and concerted efforts to create earthquake and tsunami resilient communities.

This article is republished from The Conversation through a Creative Commons licence.

Dr Anja Scheffers is a professor at Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the wake of mass destruction caused by Indonesia’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, survivors in Palu and Donggala in Central Sulawesi have been scrambling to salvage food supplies and other items, as aid from the central government began to trickle into the region.

Yesterday, many survivors blocked trucks carrying aid to plunder the contents as many have gone hungry and thirsty for days.

A video circulating on Twitter, said to have been taken in Donggala regency, also shows people intercepting a relief aid truck.

VIEW MORE: Drone video footage shows scale of Palu tsunami devastation

The Jakarta Post’s correspondent saw people waiting for fuel at a Pertamina gas station asking the entourage of journalists and officials from Jakarta for drinking water.

“Drinking water, drinking water, please,” some survivors said to passing motorists.

“I ran into a mother and her child at the airport who asked me to share some of my water with her child,” correspondent Andi Hajramurni said.

“Just a little, enough for my child,” Hajramurni quoted the mother as saying to her.

Upset over aid
A pregnant woman was also found exhausted outside the airport. She said she was upset to see aid being unloaded from the planes but none reaching the survivors waiting to leave the city at the airport.

Thousands crowded Mutiara Sis Al Jufri airport to leave the devastated city while staving off hunger and thirst under the scorching heat.

The survivors have been waiting for a chance to flee the city since Saturday, camping outside on mats or cardboard. They were hoping to catch a plane to Makassar to later go to their respective hometowns.

“What is important is to get out of Palu. We have agreed to meet Papa in Makassar and then go to Jakarta,” Paramita said. The 29-year-old, who sustained an injury to her leg from falling concrete debris, is taking her two sisters with her.

Desperate and impatient, the survivors were occupying part of the runway.

An airport official, Syaeful, said that on Sunday night, about 5000 people had waited for a plane at the airport. “The number keeps increasing,” he said.

Some businesses, such as at Masomba traditional market, have opened for businesses and some survivors have bought food supplies.

“I bought some fish,” the Post’s correspondent Ruslan Sangadji, who is also a survivor of the quake, said.

Food, clean water scarce
However, food and clean water are scarce and many are desperate.

In Buluri subdistrict, Ulujadi district in the western part of Palu, survivors blocked roads to intercept trucks carrying food supplies. Police officers in the area are reported to be unable to hold off the crowd.

Similarly, residents in Tawaeli district in central Palu have taken to a nearby port to intercept government aid arriving on ships. The police were also reported to be unable to ward off the desperate crowd.

A handful of residents even looted nearby convenience stores for any life-sustaining item they could find, since aid from the government had not yet arrived.

Many also attempted to siphon fuel from gas stations around the city over the weekend as none of the city’s gas stations were in operation following the earthquake and tsunami that hit the city on Friday.

Jokowi’s message
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Sunday asked quake survivors to be patient as they wait for aid to be distributed upon arriving in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi.

Jokowi said it would take one week to prepare the airport so airplanes carrying the supplies could land safely.

“I’m aware there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved as soon as possible, and I hope the people will remain patient in this situation,” he told the reporters.

Yesterday, Jokowi said he would send “as much food as possible” immediately.

Several people also reportedly robbed ATMs and jewelry shops. Twitter user @MpuAnon posted a video showing gold shops that looked like they had been looted.

“Gold shops. Post-looting,” the Twitter user said in the caption.

The police are reported to have ordered a shoot on sight policy against such robbers.

Guards on gas stations
In an attempt to maintain and restore order in the region, the National Police and the National Military have employed personnel to guard several gas stations and convenience stores across Palu, according to the police’s head of communication Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo.

Previously, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo advised against looting – not even in the wake of a natural disaster – as the act is considered criminal.

“There’s no justification whatsoever for looting. Everyone’s equally affected by the disaster; their shops destroyed, shopping malls devastated,” Tjahjo said during a televised interview, as quoted by kompas.com.

Prior to Sunday’s statement, news spread on social media that the government had approved of the looting at convenience stores and that the expenses would be covered by the state.

However, Tjahjo denied it, saying that what the government had approved was the transfer of aid funds to the Central Sulawesi administration, to be used for food supplies for survivors.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz