Many Indonesians would have survived a deadly earthquake last month if houses had been built out of bamboo and other flexible materials, says an architect on a mission to transform devastated villages.
Eko Prawoto, who is working with homeless survivors in Ngipikan, a village in an area hard-hit by the quake that rocked Central Java and Yogyakarta, blames poor construction techniques for the huge loss of life and injuries.
"Many people who died in this earthquake died because of the brick walls that fell on them," he said.
PHOTO: AFP
The 6.3-magnitude temblor killed 5,800 people, injured up to 40,000 people and destroyed or damaged almost 600,000 houses in the heavily-populated area, which like much of Indonesia faces a constant risk of serious earthquakes.
Many of the houses that were damaged or flattened were built of brick and concrete and featured little reinforcement to resist the shockwaves of the quake, Prawoto says.
A preliminary assessment by the government's Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) also blamed poor construction for the high injury and death toll.
A bookshop and some houses in Yogyakarta built after Prawoto's mostly timber designs survived the May 27 quake undamaged, were his first experiments in quake-resistant construction.
"It's a wooden structure -- which is elastic -- and absorbs shocks ... During an earthquake, you have pushing and pulling forces. Each junction should resist these kind of forces," he said.
In Java, as in much of Indonesia, residences made of bamboo and timber are generally looked down upon as poor people's housing, whereas concrete and brick are viewed as symbols of modernity and rising wealth, Prawoto said.
Nevertheless in the aftermath of the quake, many traumatized villagers now fear living or even sitting inside brick or concrete buildings.
"It's a traumatic experience for them," he said.
For Ngipikan, where almost all the houses were destroyed, Prawoto has designed houses for rebuilding that use traditional materials but have a modern twist: The lower half of the house walls are brick and the upper half bamboo, with coconut trees used for the structural posts.
"It's important to apply bamboo and timber in a different way so as to give the image of newness," he said.
"We use brick but only 1m high -- so in case an earthquake happens again, if it falls down then it's not so dangerous," he said.
Assisted by donations from the local daily Kompas, Prawoto has begun building four of a planned 65 houses. He hopes the houses will serve as a model for other residents looking to build cheap but strong new homes.
With free labor provided by villagers and using recycled timber from the collapsed houses in combination with low-cost bamboo, he estimates each house will cost 10 million rupiah (US$1,060).
The government has promised to pay 30 million rupiah to quake victims whose houses were destroyed, but Prawoto suspects such assistance will take months to be disbursed and people cannot wait that long.
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
CRACKDOWN: The Indonesian president vowed to clamp down on ‘treason and terrorism,’ while acceding to some protest demands to revoke lawmaker benefits Protests in Indonesia over rising living costs and inequality intensified overnight, prompting Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to cancel a planned trip to China, while demonstrators reportedly targeted the homes of the finance minister and several lawmakers. Rioters entered Indonesian Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati’s residence near Jakarta early yesterday, but were repelled by armed forces personnel, Kompas reported. Items were taken from the homes of lawmaker Ahmad Sahroni and two others, according to Detik.com. The reports of looting could not be independently verified, and the finance ministry has not responded to requests for comment. The protests were sparked by outrage over
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
RSS