A deadly earthquake of 7.7. magnitude hit Flores Island at about 05.30 in the morning, prompting an early potential tsunami around northern shores of the Island. The unexpected disaster has caused serious fatalities across the island, the worst ever since the last horrible quake in Maumere in 1992. At least 54 people have been killed and hundreds of people have been seriously injured by this powerful and massive quake. Thousands of buildings both private and government structures have been fatally destroyed.

What we know from Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics is that the quake was caused by a movement along the active Flores back volcanic arc-thrust. The movement has originated from an extreme compressional stress caused by the collision between Indo-Australian plate and Eurasian plate (or Sunda block). Such a collision creates intense tectonic quake as it is still being felt for more than 1200 times as aftershock impact.

As we know Flores Island as the major parts of the archipelago sits along the highly active ring of volcanoes and main fault lines. Fault line is a crack or fracture left by previous collisions. Recent earthquake in Flores has left the island with a reverse fault where rocks within the plates smash together in such a way one block pushes forward.  The recent earthquake can be qualified as sister events as the same geological fault of the historic 1992 quake in Maumere. The fault lines created by quake of 1992 was locked and it stored a massive energy while Australian and Eurasian plates moved forward to each other in reverse direction. The locked fault experienced compressional stress until it reached its peak before releasing powerful tectonic quake.  Remember that the recent seismic epicenter is just 40 km away from 1992 epicenter. That means both of them happen in the same line of Earth’s crust. It’s absolutely clear that the quake has created more faults that may prompt the return period or cycle of similar quakes in the future. We count on our scientist and government to inform us well about this.

Indonesian government has set up an organized and strategic response to the disaster. It declared a 14-day state of emergency, deployed volunteers and military for rescue and relief work mostly within the communities severely affected by the quake. In coordination with East Nusa Tenggara provincial administration and all local district administration across the island, the central government dispatched hundreds of tons of survival kits (food, tents, medicines, blankets and other family kits). In order to handle injures and trauma cases, several field hospitals and other medical infrastructures have been installed together with the deployment of paramedics. State-owned electric company and other energy enterprises worked rapidly to restore power lines, clear roads and secure fuel and LPG logistics. Meanwhile local communities including religious communities organized themselves direct and rapid aids to those in needs.

What we can absolutely learn from this kind of seismic disaster is resilience-based public policy. It constitutes a decentralized relief infrastructures completed with adequate rescue and relief equipment available for all level local administration. Our government has campaigned for Dana Desa or Village Fund which is supposed to work alongside central government infrastructure project of rural connectivity. Due to massive corruption, the fund has failed to fully reach the local communities in need. This disaster should be a wakeup call to reevaluate the use and the management of the fund. In South-East Asia, governments like Thailand and Malaysia have better village fund management. Though fund leakage still happens, the fund however can fully reach the local communities. Each local government district like Desa has basic infrastructure equipment like excavators, bulldozers, wheel loaders and dump trucks which are significant machinery during the time of disaster. This will help minimize the casualties after quakes and accelerate the rescue operation.

The resilience-based public policy also requires active contribution and participation of local communities by encouraging awareness on resilience-based design of their own houses once they rebuild them. The objective is practical and simple: rebuilding is not simply a matter of surviving similar or bigger shaking but also reusing them afterward. Catholic University in Ruteng for example can seize this opportunity to challenge its faculty of engineering on pioneering creative design on the basis of resilience-based design. The similar challenge can be addressed to different construction companies or builders across the island. Currently, the people of Flores are still being haunted by ongoing aftershock shaking. This kind of prolonged feeling should end by learning to adapt, rethink, rebuild and reborn. That’s how suffering teaches us. It should make us stronger than ever. (Reynaldo Fulgentio Tardelly,)