Seismographs investment/donation please!
The running texts of Indonesia's TV stations has apparently been focusing on the number of casualties and the amount of money donated by dignitaries like...Kalla Family Rp2 billion, Prayogo Pangestu Rp500 million, Boy Thohir Rp100 million, Indra Bakrie Rp500 million, etc...or the announcement from big companies in what they claimed corporate social responsibilities like...Company A to rebuild the school, company B to rehabilitate the mosques and hospitals...donates tents or boxes of instant noodles, tea, mineral water...etc...But I'm awating texts like...smart guy donates a seismograph or scholarships for students in the earth science...
I decided to run the text after reading Kompas.com report quoting Surono, an officer at Yogyakarta's branch of Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika (BMG)---Indonesia's USGS.
Surono disclosed that Indonesia has no seismograph installed to measure the earth's movement in southern belt of the quake line of Java Island. Surono believes USGS even has that and that explains why USGS and BMG have different figures about the earthquake in Yogyakarta that kills more than 3,800 people and more than 10,000 people injured. Reconstruction costs were predicted at least US$110 million. Worse, as reported by Tempointeraktif.com, the quake also hit the main building of monitoring devices for Merapi Volcano and that's scared people there as no information available on the possible deadly eruptions from the active volcano.
Back to to the seismograph issue. USGS reported the epicentrum of the quake at 17 km beneath the surface, while BMG said it's 33 km below the surface.
Last year, both China and Japan committed to donate dozens of new seismographs to Indonesia aftermath the tsunami that killed more than 120 thousand people in Aceh. The National Earthquake Center has also planned to install more than 100 new seismographs in 10 locations. But somehow the country missed the southern part of Java Island?
I believe the cost of such seismograph is nothing compared to Minister Sugiharto's plan to spend US$337 million to buyback 25.5% shares of cement manufacturer PT Semen Gresik Tbk from Cemex SA and even a peanut compared to the cost to build East Kalimantan Governor's residence of US$7 million (to match Hollywood stars heh...).
Seismograph investment is one thing. But the country is apparently lack of expertise in the sector. So, scholarships dedicated to this field of expertise would be a great way to help prepare a better prevention management in the future.
City planning should be improved as well, especially on public housing technology in quake sensitive areas in the country. (Remember that the crash of the buildings or roofs were the main cause of misseries in Yogyakarta quake)
At the high-level public policy sphere, president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who runs the administration from Yogyakarta for three days, should take a new approach toward BMG. We can't aford to keep treating BMG as a periphery agency. We need to empower BMG to be our USGS and play a more important role for the economy and the people.
I remember few years ago when I visited a cigarette factory in Central Java. The owner said he was relying very much on weather reports from Australia to provide more accurate information to tobacco farmers. "The farmers need accurate weather reports to schedule planting or harvesting. We spend a lot of money to buy those reports from Australia, but we just can't stand to see them suffer from bad harvest season," the cigarette businessman said.
That's how important the information about the mother nature for the economy. I wonder how much money industries like construction, offshore oil and gas, mining, airlines, or sea transportation have to pay in US dollars for so many years just because of our ignorance on such an important institution.
READ MORE!!!
I decided to run the text after reading Kompas.com report quoting Surono, an officer at Yogyakarta's branch of Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika (BMG)---Indonesia's USGS.
Surono disclosed that Indonesia has no seismograph installed to measure the earth's movement in southern belt of the quake line of Java Island. Surono believes USGS even has that and that explains why USGS and BMG have different figures about the earthquake in Yogyakarta that kills more than 3,800 people and more than 10,000 people injured. Reconstruction costs were predicted at least US$110 million. Worse, as reported by Tempointeraktif.com, the quake also hit the main building of monitoring devices for Merapi Volcano and that's scared people there as no information available on the possible deadly eruptions from the active volcano.
Back to to the seismograph issue. USGS reported the epicentrum of the quake at 17 km beneath the surface, while BMG said it's 33 km below the surface.
Last year, both China and Japan committed to donate dozens of new seismographs to Indonesia aftermath the tsunami that killed more than 120 thousand people in Aceh. The National Earthquake Center has also planned to install more than 100 new seismographs in 10 locations. But somehow the country missed the southern part of Java Island?
I believe the cost of such seismograph is nothing compared to Minister Sugiharto's plan to spend US$337 million to buyback 25.5% shares of cement manufacturer PT Semen Gresik Tbk from Cemex SA and even a peanut compared to the cost to build East Kalimantan Governor's residence of US$7 million (to match Hollywood stars heh...).
Seismograph investment is one thing. But the country is apparently lack of expertise in the sector. So, scholarships dedicated to this field of expertise would be a great way to help prepare a better prevention management in the future.
City planning should be improved as well, especially on public housing technology in quake sensitive areas in the country. (Remember that the crash of the buildings or roofs were the main cause of misseries in Yogyakarta quake)
At the high-level public policy sphere, president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who runs the administration from Yogyakarta for three days, should take a new approach toward BMG. We can't aford to keep treating BMG as a periphery agency. We need to empower BMG to be our USGS and play a more important role for the economy and the people.
I remember few years ago when I visited a cigarette factory in Central Java. The owner said he was relying very much on weather reports from Australia to provide more accurate information to tobacco farmers. "The farmers need accurate weather reports to schedule planting or harvesting. We spend a lot of money to buy those reports from Australia, but we just can't stand to see them suffer from bad harvest season," the cigarette businessman said.
That's how important the information about the mother nature for the economy. I wonder how much money industries like construction, offshore oil and gas, mining, airlines, or sea transportation have to pay in US dollars for so many years just because of our ignorance on such an important institution.
READ MORE!!!
posted by yosef at 12:59 AM
3 Comments:
but what is the point of seismographs?
After all, they may be able to measure the size of the earthquake, but they cannot predict when one can happen can they?
"Smart" has nothing to do with a seismograph or scholarships donation.
I think everybody who already gave donation for whatever purposes is smart.
Indeed, I couldn't agree more on the accurate prediction of an earthquake. I saw TV news at 11 AM and I don't even know how powerful was the earthquake. Although minutes later I succeed to access USGS and found a 6.2 magnitude earthquake at 25km south of Yogya. Even USGS didn't claim this measure as accurate. They too must wait for field report submitted to them. No wonder BMG would only measure it as 5.9 magnitude earthquake.
Why don't some related govt official subscribes to USGS earthquake RSS feed? For the case of Yogya earthquake, govt officials at Semarang, Surabaya, Solo, Bandung, and Jakarta should monitor earthquake RSS feed too. Since Yogya govt official might not access the feed because of total black out.
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