To ease the suffering

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.