Disaster mitigation in Indonesia: between plans and reality

Abstract

Abstract Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable countries in the risk of natural disasters from the standpoint of geography, geology, climatology and demography. The geographical position of Indonesia is located at the confluence of 3 main tectonic plates and includes the Pacific Ring of Fire, and has more than 500 volcanoes, of which about 128 are still active. Some of the disasters that caused severe damage, large casualties and high losses included the earthquake and tsunami in Aceh (2004), the earthquake in Yogyakarta (2006), the earthquake in Padang (2009), the earthquake in Lombok (2018) and earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction disasters in Palu (2018). For this reason, it has become a necessity for the Indonesian people to learn from this disastrous experience of disaster by identifying all aspects related to risk and vulnerability to improve the ability of communities to cope with disasters. This study, which is based on the results of a study of a number of disaster studies, seeks to revisit several disaster events in Indonesia with a special review of the concept of disaster mitigation and its application to minimize disaster risk in urban areas. The results of the study show that the concept of disaster mitigation has been planned in several cities in Indonesia but there are still weaknesses in its application when a disaster occurs. This result is expected to be one of the references in improving the quality of urban disaster mitigation planning in Indonesia.