Govt prioritizes warning system

Govt prioritizes warning system

Rendi A. Witular and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The government will soon set up a national early warning system
that would help minimize fatalities and injuries in the event of
a natural disaster, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday.

He said that the offices of the State Minister of Research and
Technology and the Ministry of Communications and Information
would have worked out the basics of the system by next week, and
it would be put in place next month.

The system would utilize the technology owned by the
Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) for detection purposes,
and alert the public via police stations of any natural disaster,
such as an earthquake or flood.

The plan to set up an early warning system for natural
disasters was largely brought about by the devastating tsunami on
Dec. 26 and the recent huge earthquake in Sumatra, which is
feared to have killed more than 1,000 people on Nias Island and
in neighboring areas.

Analysts have issued warnings of more quakes to come.

They said the Dec. 26 earthquake set off a domino effect of
seismic instability that could last decades and kill thousands.

Seismologists are already sure that Monday's magnitude-8.7
quake off Sumatra island was the direct result of raised stress
levels in the earth's crust caused by the Dec. 26 tremor.
And they say there is now a heightened risk of further large
quakes -- not just aftershocks -- in the area, although
predicting them accurately remains impossible, AFP reported.

Last month, the government of Indonesia signed an agreement
with Germany to set up a tsunami early warning system in October.

Separately, Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi announced that
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the
National Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board
(Bakornas PBP), BMG and the Ministry of Home Affairs to establish
natural disaster management task forces.

"The President has instructed Bakornas to set up task forces
for emergency response in areas prone to natural disaster," he
said.

The task forces would consist of government institutions such
as the police, BMG, state-owned electricity company (PLN) and
regional administrations.

Minister of Home Affairs M. Ma'ruf said he had issued a
ministerial instruction on natural disaster mitigation for
regional administrations.

"I issued it yesterday, but it highlighted general issues. I
will provide more detailed instructions today (Friday)," he said.