Promoting Humanitarian Engineering Approaches for Earthquake-Resilient Housing in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia is an earthquake-prone country. In many earthquakes, the housing sector suffers the most damage. Repairing and rebuilding houses is often the most expensive part of post-disaster recovery, placing a burden on the government. Standards and guidelines for earthquake-resilient houses exist, yet houses continue to be damaged in earthquake events. Although Indonesia has numerous engineers, both experienced and newly qualified, only a few are interested in pursuing and identifying affordable solutions to the housing problems caused by earthquakes that are sustainable and resilient. Moreover, people are unaware of and unable to implement the proposed and promoted solutions. With many people living in earthquake-prone areas with little access to affordable and appropriate technology, the challenge facing Indonesia today is to produce more engineers who have the level of sensitivity, empathy, and passion required to address this great humanitarian need. The promotion of humanitarian engineering to provide appropriate solutions must start early on in higher engineering education.