Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
Two years after a massive earthquake hit Nias Island in North Sumatra, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is set to end its recovery and rehabilitation program on the island in December this year, replacing it with a self-reliant program. (more…)
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
Nias students protested Wednesday outside the North Sumatra Legislative Council in Medan over the pace of reconstruction on the earthquake-devastated island. (more…)
Gunung Sitoli, Nias , Indonesia, 27 March 2007 – Two years on from the quake, international aid agency Oxfam is helping 61,000 people affected by the quake in 60 villages. (more…)
Today, Nur Iman Gulo has a small shop and lots of customers, thanks to help from Church World Service. The simple building that serves as the shop and the home for her family of seven — including four kids and her mother-in-law — is located in Tegideu village, Sirombu, Nias Island, reports Lesvi Roselim, Church World Service-Indonesia. When an earthquake hit on March 28, 2005, their home was destroyed. (more…)
GUNUNG SITOLI, NIAS, March 16, 2007. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Black & Veatch organized a mid-term review of Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project Package 24 (ETESP-24) project under the auspices of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency NAD-Nias (BRR NAD-Nias) and Agency for Regional Development Planning (Bappeda) in Nias on the work completed in four of the eight sub-districts namely Botomuzõi, Hiliduho, Namohalu Esiwa, and Tugala Oyo. It aims to disseminate the preliminary information gathered across these sub-districts and to seek BRR and Bappeda’s support for the ongoing activities. (more…)
Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Chief Executive Officer of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) projects in Nias has asked for an extension of the agency’s mission on the North Sumatran island, citing the slow progress of reconstruction projects after the 2004 tsunami and 2005 earthquake. (more…)
Nias Online (the English version, this site) has moved to the new location at: https://niasonline.net/eng/ and become the subdomain of Situs Yaahowu (the Indonesian version). The news update will be displayed in the new location (niasonline.net/eng/). Read Hammerle’s paper entitled: “Society and Culture in Nias” presented at a Conference in Vienna, 30 – 31 October 2006.
Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Eight out of every 10 people in Nias, North Sumatra, are unsatisfied with the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the tsunami-ravaged region, according to a survey.
The Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) found that only 21 percent of 419 Nias respondents saw improvement in the construction of main roads, while only nine percent said their water and sanitation was better since the reconstruction projects started last year. (more…)
By Sebastien Berger, South East Asia Correspondent
The British Government has the worst record for honouring pledges to help to rebuild the area worst affected by the Boxing Day tsunami, it emerged yesterday.
As the second anniversary of the disaster approaches, the Government has only given a fifth of the money it pledged to the biggest international consortium working in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Entire villages along hundreds of miles of Aceh’s coast were swept away by waves caused by an underwater earthquake and 168,000 people were killed. (more…)
Thang D. Nguyen
22 December 2006
Two years after one of the world’s worst natural disasters, Indonesia has made some unlikely gains but corruption and red tape still leave their scars .
Sometimes a tragedy is the very thing that triggers progress. This is true in the case of Indonesia, one of the most-affected countries by the Asian tsunami that happened on Boxing Day two years ago. (more…)
Brussels, 20 December 2006 – Two years after the tsunami hit South East Asia, the European Union (EU) and the international community have successfully made the transition from providing immediate humanitarian aid to reconstruction aid: helping local authorities and communities re-establish their lives within a longer term vision – re-building homes, livelihoods and infrastructure 100% of the €123 million humanitarian aid and 96% of the €350 million in medium and long-term reconstruction pledged by the European Commission has been contracted. The first concrete results are now being seen. Full story …
Medan, 18 Dec. (AKI) – An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale on Monday at 04.39 am shook Penyabungan town, Mandailing Natal district on the west coast of North Sumatra, a local meteorology and geophysics office spokesman, Buha Simanjuntak, confirmed after the quake, quoted by Indonesia’s Antara news agency. Simanjunta said at least four people were killed and several houses destroyed by the earthquake, whose epicenter was located at t a depth of 33 km below sea level, 98 km southeast of Penyabungan town and 58 km northeast of Lubuk Sikaping, Pasaman district in West Sumatra.
Another major earthquake and tsunami will strike the western coast of Sumatra sometime in the next few decades, according to researchers studying the region’s history. And the predicted tsunami has a significant chance of hitting densely populated areas, the team says.
Tsunami prediction for Sumatra and the Indian Ocean region has become a priority since the devastating tsunamis of December 2004 and March 2005. In the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jose Borrero of the University of Southern California and colleagues reported on Dec. 4 a new tsunami prediction model based on past behavior of earthquakes and tsunamis in the area. “This is an important study and wakeup call for more action to do something to reduce the risk to coastal populations,” says Roland Burgmann, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Two years ago, the tiny Indonesian village of Sorake Beach captured the hearts of Star readers after it was devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami. Richard Heath tells how Star readers’ cash has helped transform the settlement. (more…)
Summary of achievements
On Boxing Day, 2004, an earthquake centred in the Indian Ocean and measuring between 9.1 and 9.3 on the Richter scale – the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph – triggered a series of tsunamis, causing one of the deadliest disasters in modern history.
Nowhere else was this disaster felt more powerfully than in Aceh, where 168,000 people died, over 500,000 were made homeless and the equivalent of 120 average Australian suburbs (120,000 houses) were totally destroyed. A stretch of coastline equal in length to the distance between Sydney and Brisbane was destroyed. Full story …
