To ease the suffering

There can be little doubt that East Java can count the rugged coastline along its shores south of Malang among its blessings. Not many other places, inside the province or outside, can rival the grandeur of the scenery along this largely unspoiled strip of Java's southern coastline. The catastrophe which struck this particular area on the morning of Friday, however, is proof that when dealing with nature, another, more fearful, aspect often has to be reckoned with.

The disaster struck during the small hours of Friday, devastating a number of villages and taking the lives of more than two-hundred people. Tidal waves, triggered by an earthquake originating underneath the seabed in the Indian Ocean just south of the coast, swept across the land while most of the villagers were still asleep. As of yesterday the death toll was still rising, with newspapers putting it at anywhere between 201 and 214.

In the light of the aftermath of the disaster, however, precise death counts become rather irrelevant when compared to the magnitude of the grief and human suffering which the calamity has left in its wake.

The Banyuwangi disaster is all the more saddening considering the fact that it came not so very long after two other major disasters of a more or less similar nature. In 1992, the worst natural disaster in recent years hit the island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province, when another tsunami swept the south coast of the island, leaving more than two-thousand people dead. More recently -- in February -- a killer earthquake devastated Liwa, in the province of Lampung in southern Sumatra, killing 201 villagers.

Lamentable though all this naturally is, the inescapable fact is that in many areas of this country disasters of this nature are simply something which Indonesians will have to live with whether they like it or not. As it happens, Indonesia is located on top of one of the world's most volcanically active zones. On many islands the process of active mountain building continues up to the very present and in many areas volcanic eruptions and tectonic earthquakes are inescapable facts of life. In the case of last week's disaster more than 520 after shocks were counted since the first one on Friday up to Sunday noon.

The logical conclusion of all this obviously is that there can be only one effective way to deal with disasters of the kind which hit the Banyuwangi coast on Friday -- that is by making the suffering as bearable for the population as possible. Perhaps there will come a time when it will be possible to give the population living along the danger zones early warning of looming disasters of this particular nature. However, a more realistic and certainly a more practicable course would be to get things organized so that the relief work that has to be done can be done with the fewest hitches possible.

This, admittedly, is not really a fresh point to bring up. However, quite a few among us may be struck by the fact that, apparently, in every case of disaster so far, efforts have to be made to make sure that all assistance does indeed reach those who need it. Some of the relief aid for the disaster victims at Liwa and Flores, for example, was reportedly misappropriated. Thus it is not surprising that cabinet ministers visiting the site of the catastrophe have called for regular reporting on the relief work.

It would certainly help to ease this process if greater transparency were effected in the handling of all relief aid during disasters. We are confident that this would also encourage people to donate.