Children learn about earthquakes, tsunami

Children learn about earthquakes, tsunami

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

"Watashi wa Professor Hamada desu," says a visiting lecturer, who
is greeted with a hall full of giggles. The man who introduced
himself, Masanori Hamada, is from the Japan Society of Civil
Engineering. He and his colleagues were here at Kartika
elementary school on Thursday for a session on earthquake
preparation.

"It is the most important" aspect of the society's work, he
said. The entire school was packed into the mosque on the school
grounds -- the space, though cramped and hot, was big enough
because about half of the school's 600 students were lost in the
tsunami, teachers said.

In the session, students volunteered to come to the front and
read out descriptions on earthquakes and tsunamis from big
colorful posters. Then they had a grand time laughing at their
teachers who stumbled when trying to sing a tune on the theme,
translated from Japanese. The teachers had been introduced
earlier to the program, but the singing appeared to be the most
difficult part.

The next part was animation, which was used to illustrate an
earthquake in a crowded town, and what people do to prevent
themselves from being hurt.

Then the restless students began to watch intently as the
narrator took them through a cartoon about a village chief who
somehow sensed that a tidal wave was about to hit the area, and
managed to save his people.

A fifth grader, Zarita, nodded when asked whether she had seen
the waves depicted in the cartoon, a giant wall of black water
approaching homes and frightened people. She had lost classmates,
she said.

In response to students' questions like "how many times a year
does an earthquake or tsunami happen?" Hamada, who teaches at
Waseda University, said that what was more important was that the
students continue to teach their families and future children and
grandchildren what they had learned, as such disasters were still
difficult to predict. Japan has experienced many earthquakes and
its citizens are not unfamiliar either with tsunamis.

Experts have predicted more earthquakes in Sumatra, the latest
major one since Dec. 26 being on March 28 in Nias, North Sumatra.
Hamada says the society has introduced the program in a number of
schools in Banda Aceh since March.