Lombok quakes ‘not a national disaster’
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s disaster agency says earthquakes that killed more than 500 people on the island of Lombok in the past month and caused half a billion dollars in damage don’t rise to the level of a national emergency.
The agency’s response to criticism, released on Monday evening, strikes a nationalistic tone, noting that declaring a national disaster opens the “door as wide as possible’’ to international assistance that could cause new problems.
But it also said Indonesia has substantial experience in handling natural calamities and hasn’t declared a national disaster since the December 2004 tsunami that killed more than 100,000 people in Aceh province on Sumatra.
It said the tsunami was declared a national disaster because all levels of government in the province were devastated and overwhelmed, requiring a central command.
Media articles and people on social media have criticised the relief response to the earthquakes. An Australian journalist’s tweet expressing astonishment that a national disaster hadn’t been declared was retweeted nearly 5,000 times.
Some of the domestic criticism is politically motivated as candidates for the presidential election in April, including the incumbent Joko “Jokowi’’ Widodo, are beginning their campaigns.
Lombok has been hit by a series of powerful quakes since late July. The latest two on Sunday, a magnitude 6.3 quake in the morning and a 6.9 temblor in the evening, included a swarm of aftershocks which killed at least a dozen people.
The disaster agency said the quakes have claimed 506 lives, damaged more than 74,000 homes and displaced 431,000 people.