Disaster command centers face mammoth tasks

Disaster command centers face mammoth tasks

A'an Suryana
The Jakarta Post/Banda Aceh

Lt. Col. Gandara is busy. He wanders around a hangar at an air
force base in Medan, North Sumatra, where a disaster mitigation
command center is located. In his nearby office, other staffers
take notes on which planes are ready to land and which are ready
to take off.

Many other soldiers, volunteers and government employees are
busy unloading aid from trucks and putting it into piles in the
hangar.

Some liaison officers chat with foreign guests, who seek
information on where they should be dropping aid, or who simply
seek a fast way to get to Banda Aceh, the hub of humanitarian
relief work.

Helicopters and Hercules airplanes go back and forth to and
from the airbase, dropping off aid at the Iskandar Muda Air Force
base in Banda Aceh, while others directly distribute aid to
places in need across the province.

"We are extremely busy," said Gandara, who is in charge of
organizing flights for aircraft that transport people and
humanitarian aid to the stricken province.

He said at least seven aircraft went back and forth from the
airbase, with each conducting trips twice a day to Banda Aceh and
other needy areas in Aceh. The aircraft in question are two
Hercules from the Indonesian military (TNI), two Chinook and two
Super Puma helicopters from Singapore, and a CN-235 from
Malaysia.

But the amount of aid being sent has surpassed the aircraft's
capacity, leading to a backlog of aid at the airbase.

However, the backlog of aid has been partly overcome since
about a week ago, when a Hercules cargo plane from the U.S.
Marines and another from the Australian military started
assisting. In addition, between nine and 12 helicopters from the
U.S. Navy have also been loading aid from the Iskandar Muda
airbase and dropping it to needy areas since Saturday of last
week, helping to reduce backlogs at the Medan airbase.

The Medan disaster mitigation command center has various task
forces. Their jobs include disseminating information, providing
fuel and electricity supplies, and obtaining medical assistance
and other necessities for victims.

The center, chaired by North Sumatra Governor Rizal Nurdin, is
one of several disaster mitigation command posts in North Sumatra
and Aceh provinces. There are three other large command posts,
namely the one in Banda Aceh, another in Meulaboh in West Aceh
regency and the other in Lhokseumawe, the capital of North Aceh
regency.

A significant part of aid is being poured into the Iskandar
Muda airbase in Banda Aceh, from where it is distributed to other
areas of Aceh.

Military helicopters and planes pick up aid in Banda Aceh and
drop it to needy areas in Aceh, their trips being coordinated by
Indonesian Military officers led by Maj. Gen. Bambang Dharmono.
The two-star general is responsible for dropping of aid,
evacuation efforts, and infrastructure rehabilitation.

"For the governance function, this is the responsibility of
Azwar Abu Bakar, the deputy governor of Aceh," said Risman Musa,
the deputy coordinating minister for people's welfare, who has
been in Aceh since Tuesday last week to assist Alwi Shihab.

Azwar is responsible for rebuilding government, deploying or
recruiting government officials to affected parts of the
province. He is also responsible for collecting data on the
number and types of infrastructure damaged in the tsunami
disaster, missing persons, people who have died, and where aid
has to be dropped.

"We are focusing on maintaining aid distribution to needy
areas and corpse evacuation. We are also building large refugee
camps that can accommodate as many people as possible, to make it
easy for us to drop the aid and provide people with better
sanitation facilities," Risman told The Jakarta Post on Friday in
Banda Aceh.

In a press release, Alwi said that the government would
immediately build five large refugee camps that can accommodate
some 8,000 to 20,000 people each.

Risman cited two challenges that the government is facing.
Corpse evacuation is becoming more difficult as the remaining
bodies are buried beneath building rubble. More and more
volunteers are flooding Banda Aceh and other areas of the
province, and most of them never register with the government and
they work in uncoordinated manners.

From field observation, the volunteers mostly focus on corpse
evacuation, while there are actually many refugees who need more
attention. The volunteers can also be allocated to help clean up
Banda Aceh and it's the job of the government to coordinate them.