Residents of landslide areas pan govt relocation plan
Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post/Kuningan
Top officials in the Kuningan and Majalengka regental administrations have acknowledged that they are facing difficulties in relocating residents from landslide-prone areas.
They attributed the difficulties to a lack of money for land compensation and people's stubbornness.
Kuningan Regent Aang Hamid Suganda said recently that hundreds of residents in his regency lived in areas extending to some 7,000 hectares that were prone to landslides. The areas were located in the southern part of the regency.
The regental administration would need hundreds of billions rupiah that it did not have to relocate all of these people.
"Besides that, the residents also refuse to move from these areas as they don't want to abandon land that has been passed down from generation to generation. It's complicated," said Hamid.
Hamid said that the administration had frequently appealed to people to voluntarily move to safer areas. The administration, however, could only provide them with transportation expenses.
"We have been making efforts for the past year and have only managed to relocate 11 families in Selajambe district. They moved of their own volition," said Hamid.
According to Hamid, other areas that are susceptible to landslides are Subang and Darma districts. "These three districts are extremely susceptible to landslides as they are situated on the slopes of Mount Ciremai, which is devoid of vegetation and has an unstable soil structure," he said.
Separately in Majalengka regency, eight landslide-prone districts -- Lemahsugih, Cinambul, Cikijing, Maja, Bantarujeg, Talaga, Banjaran and Argapura -- are situated on the slopes of Mount Ciremai.
"There are hundreds of villages in the eight districts. We have repeatedly appealed to the thousands of families there to be always on the alert. I would be grateful if they would move from these areas," said Majalengka Regent Ms. Tutty Hayati Anwar.
Similarly to the Kuningan administration, the Majalengka administration is also confronted by lack of money to compensate residents for their land. "We can only appeal to them to move of their own volition," said Tutty.
According to Tutty, billions of rupiah would be needed to relocate the thousands of residents from the eight districts.
"We don't have that kind of money. We hope the central government and the West Java provincial administration can help us," said Tutty.
The administration has also been implementing a reforestation drive over the past year in order to reduce the risk of landslides.
"The reforestation drive is somewhat belated, but it's better late than never," she said.
She added that the administration had sent letters to every agency and all concerned to be always be alert for landslides. "Caution is essential as landslides can happen at any time in the eight districts during the rainy season," said Tutty.
Based on data from Kuningan regency, the worst landslide disaster in the area occurred on Jan. 31, 2003.
The landslide, which occurred in Cantilan village, Selajambe district, Kuningan regency, claimed the lives of 10 people, seriously injured one other person and destroyed four houses.
In Majalengka, the worst landslide in living memory happened on Jan. 4, 2004, in Wanahayu village, as a result of which four people were killed, dozens of houses damaged and losses were inflicting amounting to hundreds of millions of rupiah.