Tsunami and Earthquake in Indonesia

Tsunami, a great tidal, long high sea wave caused by an earthquake,

submarine landslide, or other disturbance, a great power of sea wave, destroy

everything that stays in front of it. It’s still fresh in our mind where the tsunami strike

the city of Aceh on 26-December-2004 and about 230.000 citizens were killed by the

tsunami and earthquake of Aceh, this earthquake struck a lot of cities. Cities of

Banda Aceh, Calang, and Meulaboh is the hardest city that is struck by tsunami. The

tragedy of the tsunami was further compounded on March 26 when a second off-

shore earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale struck the sea bed between the

islands of Simeulue Island in Aceh and Nias in North Sumatra.

This horrible natural disaster have a great impact on the population of

Indonesia, which can be impact to the human resources. The population of Aceh

before the December 2004 tsunami was 4,271,000 (2004). The population as of 15

September 2005 was 4,031,589, a loss of almost 2% of the Indonesian population.

The tsunami also affected the economic of Indonesia, natural resources is destroyed

and “eaten” by the tsunami. Almost 75% of the natural resources in Aceh is

destroyed by the tsunami. About US$4.5 billion (before inflation, and US$6.2 billion

including inflation) is needed to recover the lost of homes, natural resources and

other things. But the tsunami brought a lot of fishes from the sea to the land.

Government act quick enough due to this natural disaster, Indonesian

government has built special agency for Aceh reconstruction, called Badan

Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR/Agency of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction)

headed by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, former Indonesian Minister. This agency has

ministry level of authority and incorporating officials, professionals and community

leaders from all background.

Most of the reconstruction work is being performed by local people using a

mix of traditional methods and partial prefabricated structures, with funding coming

from many international organizations and individuals, governments, and the people

themselves.

People from Indonesia and other countries gather together to help the

victims of natural disaster. The world bank have gave US$7.7 billion was allotted for

the reconstruction in Aceh.

1 year the disaster happens, the trauma from the victims of natural disaster

still remain on the mind of the victims, a lot of work is done due to relief the trauma

that occurs in the mind of the victims.

Essential concepts of geography:

1. Location: The place where the tsunami occurs is in Sumatra, it’s near the plates of the earth.

2. Distance: The tsunami reach a great distance, from the Indonesia, until the other southeast Asia country (Sri Lanka, Thailand)

3. Outreach: Government, citizens from Indonesia or other country have gather together, hand in hand to help to recover their country, even world bank have give US$7.7 billion to recover the impacts of the natural disaster

4. Morphology: The positioning of the earth plate affect the tsunami and earthquake, the city/island that located near the plate will have a great possibilities to be the victims of earthquake even tsunami

5. Agglomeration: People that got the impacts of the natural disaster have help each other to relief their traumatic and work together to make changes, to make the world as a better place.

6. Utility value: The natural disaster have brought some natural resources (fishes) to the land.

7. Interaction: People in different country that got the impact of the natural disaster work and interact together to recover their city where the tsunami strike.

8. Area differentiation: Different place with different GDP and different richness will affect the pace of the development. Developed country will have a faster pace of development than developing country.

Resources:

- http://www.adb.org/Documents/Others/Tsunami/impact-earthquake- tsunami.pdf

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh - http://en.www.wikipedia.org/wiki/

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