April 18, 2012
With earthquakes very much in the news recently, including one in the Sunda Strait on Sunday that rattled Jakarta, the city administration is being urged to put in place guidelines for responding to a major temblor.
The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said Jakarta did not have any standard operating procedures for responding to earthquakes, especially for high-rise buildings.
It also said that without regular earthquake drills, most people in the capital had no idea what they should do in the event of a quake.
“The government has only focused on SOPs for floods and fires. For these two disasters, Jakarta has perfect operating procedures,” Sugeng Triutomo, the BNPB’s deputy head for disaster prevention and preparedness, said during a seminar in Jakarta on Tuesday.
“Once the SOP for earthquakes is finished, the main focus will be to let everyone know about it so they can respond properly in the event of an earthquake.”
Sugeng said he hoped the government would issue a special bylaw on the procedures so they would become mandatory for the owners and residents of high-rise buildings in Jakarta.
“The Jakarta BNPB must make this a priority,” he said.
A building is considered safe from earthquakes if it is not built in a quake-prone area and if the structure meets the necessary criteria and regulations established by the government.
These regulations are meant to ensure ease of escape during an emergency situation, with signs and facilities to anticipate an emergency situation. Managers of buildings are also expected to inform all building users and residents how to respond to a quake.
R. Hadianto, the chairman of Jakarta Rescue, which focuses on responding to disaster situations, said Jakarta did not the guidelines in place for properly responding to an earthquake.
“We haven’t seen an SOP on earthquake response from Jakarta yet,” he said. “This is very important because the SOP for a quake response is different to that for a fire response. A fire response is a situation that requires people to respond quickly, while the quake response is the other way around, it requires people who are affected by an earthquake to remain calm.”
Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said last year that strict regulations governing the construction of high-rise buildings meant the capital was safe from major collapses in the event of a quake.
Fauzi, addressing concerns about the city’s preparedness for a major quake, said buildings in Jakarta more than five stories high were as quake-ready as those in Japan.
He said the buildings most at risk in the event of an earthquake in the capital were those four to five stories high, such as shop-houses, which he said were often built using substandard materials and without monitoring from a building consultant.
(from the JG)
wo 18 apr 2012 - 2:26