Indonesia is a country that has several potential natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, volcano eruptions, floods, extreme weather, forest fires, abrasion, and drought. Especially an earthquake, the sudden ground movement caused by interaction between two tectonic plate movements beneath the earth. Indonesia is surrounded by several main plates, the Eurasian Plate, Indian Plate, Australian Plate, and Pacific Plate. These plates move relative to each other about 10 mm/year to 100 mm/year. The megathrust or subduction zone and fault are the implications of the tectonic activity. A lot of earthquakes will be found in these zones. Another implication is the formation of volcanic mountains from the convergent and divergent processes of the plates. According to the National Seismic Hazard Map of Indonesia (2017), Indonesia has 59 active faults and 13 megathrust zones. The active faults extend from Sumatra to Papua.

The deep wound and sorrow remain for family members who are left behind caused by these tragedies. On the other hand, the lesson learned from these tragedies is that the risk mitigation of hazard is very important either from management or technical perspective. The collaboration with any stakeholders such as government, academist, society, and private sector is the key to implement an optimal risk mitigation.

Learning from the previous earthquakes and tsunamis, one of the efforts to hazard mitigation is the implementation of an early warning system. Indonesia has implemented the tsunami early warning system since 2008 called Ina-TEWS. This system is operated by Indonesia Agency of Meteorological, Climatology, and Geophysical. The advanced tools are utilized on this system, such as seismometer, buoy, and GPS. All these tools are deployed either on the land or sea to monitor the earthquake and tsunami activities. An internet connection is a line of communication for the tools, therefore the monitoring can be maintained in real-time. Ina-TEWS capable of informing early warning within less than five minutes after the potential tsunami was issued. It is very important for people to evacuate as soon as possible since the warning was announced.

A number of earthquakes without any secondary hazard have increased. Some destructive earthquakes have occurred, such as the September 30, 2009, Mw 7.6 occurred in Padang, West Sumatera Barat; Juli 2, 2013, Mw 6.1 in Central Aceh, Aceh; December 6, 2016, Mw 6.5 in Pidie Jaya, Aceh; December 15, 2017, Mw 6.5 in Tasikmalaya, West Java; August 5, 2018, Mw 7 in Lombok; October 10, 2018, Mw 6 in Situbondo, East Java; July 14, 2019, Mw 7.2 in Halmahera,; January 15, 2021, Mw 6.2 in Mamuju Majene; February 25, 2022, Mw 6.1 in Pasaman Barat, West Sumatra; and November 21, 2022, Mw 5,6 in Cianjur, West Java. Therefore, the implementation of the Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS) is very important in Indonesia, like the Ina-TEWS. This is another effort in the earthquake mitigation to minimize the number of victims caused by structural damage to buildings.

We can learn from Japan and Taiwan. They have applied the EEWS very well. Japan has announced the EEWS to the public since 2007 while Taiwan has since 2016. Indonesia through BMKG has taken the excellent strategy to develop and implement the EEWS in Indonesia. The BMKG conducted soft launching on August 15, 2019 by installing the new ten seismometers around Banten region to monitor the earthquake activity in the megathrust segment of southern java.

My hope, the development of EEWS in Indonesia should be maintained from time to time either from hardware instrumentation, software, and physical parameters as precursors of an earthquake. The further development could be conducted by any Indonesian researchers, especially young researchers. This is a challenge that should be faced to achieve the future of Indonesia, “Indonesia Emas” in 2045. The goal is to create excellent human resources in the aspect of disaster mitigation. So that we can make a contribution to the international level.

Reference

  1. McCloskey, J., Lange, D., Tilmann, F. et al. The September 2009 Padang earthquake. Nature Geosci 3, 70–71 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo753, https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo753
  2. Gunawan, E., Widiyantoro, S., Meilano, I., & Pratama, C. (2019). Postseismic deformation following the 2 July 2013 Mw 6.1 Aceh, Indonesia, earthquake estimated using GPS data. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 177, 146-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2019.03.020
  3. Muzli, M., Umar, M., Nugraha, A. D., Bradley, K. E., Widiyantoro, S., Erbas, K., … & Wei, S. (2018). The 2016 M w 6.5 Pidie Jaya, Aceh, North Sumatra, earthquake: reactivation of an unidentified sinistral fault in a region of distributed deformation. Seismological Research Letters, 89(5), 1761-1772. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180068
  4. Sirait, A. M. M., Meltzer, A. S., Waldhauser, F., Stachnik, J. C., Daryono, D., Fatchurochman, I., … & Sembiring, A. S. (2020). Analysis of the 15 december 2017 mw 6.5 and the 23 January 2018 mw 5.9 java earthquakes. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 110(6), 3050-3063. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120200046
  5. Supendi, P., Nugraha, A. D., Widiyantoro, S., Pesicek, J. D., Thurber, C. H., Abdullah, C. I., … & Rosalia, S. (2020). Relocated aftershocks and background seismicity in eastern Indonesia shed light on the 2018 Lombok and Palu earthquake sequences. Geophysical Journal International, 221(3), 1845-1855.https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa118
  6. Patimah, S. H., Gunawan, E., Widiyantoro, S., & Triyoso, W. (2022). A blind thrust fault ruptured during the 10 October 2018 Situbondo, East Java, Indonesia, earthquake estimated using GNSS data. Geotechnical and Geological Engineering, 40(12), 5717-5724.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-022-02243-1
  7. Yuliatmoko, R. S., & Kurniawan, T. (2019). Analysis of Stress Drop Variations in Fault and Subduction Zones of Maluku and Halmahera Earthquakes in 2019. Jurnal Penelitian Fisika dan Aplikasinya (JPFA), 9(2), 152-162. https://doi.org/10.26740/jpfa.v9n2.p152-162
  8. Supendi, P., Ramdhan, M., Priyobudi, Sianipar, D., Wibowo, A., Gunawan, M. T., … & Elsera, E. M. (2021). Foreshock–mainshock–aftershock sequence analysis of the 14 january 2021 (Mw 6.2) Mamuju–Majene (West Sulawesi, Indonesia) earthquake. Earth, Planets and Space, 73, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01436-x
  9. Supendi, P., Rawlinson, N., Prayitno, B. S., Sianipar, D., Simanjuntak, A., Widiyantoro, S., … & Sudrajat, A. (2023). A previously unidentified fault revealed by the February 25, 2022 (Mw 6.1) Pasaman earthquake, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 334, 106973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2022.106973
  10. Supendi, P., Winder, T., Rawlinson, N., Bacon, C. A., Palgunadi, K. H., Simanjuntak, A., … & Jatnika, J. (2023). A conjugate fault revealed by the destructive Mw 5.6 (November 21, 2022) Cianjur earthquake, West Java, Indonesia. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 257, 105830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2023.105830
  11. https://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/eew-asp/blog-en.php
  12. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12594-021-1909-6
  13. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2021.726045/full
  14. https://www.bmkg.go.id/siaran-pers/bmkg-soft-launching-uji-coba-sistem-peringatan-dini-gempa
<
Blog Archive
Archive of all previous blog posts
>
Next Post
Derivation Of Wave Equation