Disaster Relief and Alert Systems

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA

4.2. Disaster Relief and Alert Systems

As a country that has long been exceptionally prone to natural disasters, Indonesia should benefit from the use of new technologies to improve disaster alert and relief systems for people living in coastal areas in danger of being hit by tsunamis or those living near volcanoes that are active and may erupt. Thus far, a wide variety of government agencies, local NGOs, international NGOs and media groups have collaborated in utilizing mobile phones and the Internet to increase the efficiency with which warnings can be delivered to people on the ground prior to a natural disaster and also to more efficiently get help and resources to victims of a natural disaster once it has occurred. Before the tsunami of 2004 hit Aceh, Air Putih Foundation had largely focused on providing free trainings to CBOs in computer and Internet usage, implementation of open source software, and application usage assistance for SIMKES Health Management Information System to community health centers Interview with Okta Setiawan, November 2011. Air Putih Foundation first became involved in disaster relief by restoring communications and providing Internet access to the devastated region of Aceh, within two days of the tsunami. This Internet connection in turn proved crucial to the implementation of humanitarian relief from other organizations Nugroho 2009. Now, Air Putih Foundation collaborates with AJI Independent Journalists Alliance, Tagana Youth Disaster Preparedness, SAR Search and Rescue, as well as other local and international NGOs in order to help enable the use of ICTs in disaster areas and facilitate cooperation and task allocation efficiently between different parties during disaster situations. Air Putih Foundation has also worked with the United Nations, PMI Indonesian Red Cross, and government agencies such as BNPB National Disaster Management Agency and BPBD Local Disaster Management Agency. Air Putih Foundation has also created an Early Warning System, through which they can broadcast SMS with information about potential tsunamis to all mobile phone numbers listed on their server through a program called SMS Gateway. Using SMS Gateway, Air Putih Foundation is able to broadcast thousands of tsunami alerts to the many numbers that are registered on their server. In Sri Lanka, Samarajiva and Waidyanatha have also concluded that cell broadcasting using a server to send large numbers of texts simultaneously can be very useful when combined with traditional public warning methods in areas where mobile phone usage is relatively high. The Indonesian Government, moreover, has provided cell-broadcasting units to local government BPBD offices. These units, however, along with the BPBD offices themselves, are generally quite new and not yet established in all districts at risk of natural disasters. In Central Java, four districts still do not have official BPBD offices. The district of Kebumen, however, acquired a BPBD office in October of 2010. The traditional alert system procedure was that if a tsunami warning were to be issued by the national government in Jakarta, it would be sent directly to every BPBD office and from the district government office, the sub-district kecamatan offices would be alerted in at-risk coastal areas and then these offices would alert the village heads in at-risk coastal villages. If each of these alerts were to be delivered one by one via phone calls, it would likely take quite awhile before a tsunami alert from the national government reached village heads and TIK-ISI-INGGRIS-LAYOUT-06-OK12218 18 2222013 3:27:30 PM INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA then the villagers at risk of being hit by the tsunami. Unfortunately, tsunami warnings generally cannot be made at the national government level more than a few minutes before the tsunami will strike. As such, the speed at which a tsunami warning is delivered from the national government to the at- risk populations is of critical importance. Now, with the cell-broadcasting unit provided to the Kebumen BPBD office by the National Meteorology and Geology Agency BMKG in 2010, alerts from the national government can be sent directly by text to as many mobile national government to the BPBD office—but the message would still have to be relayed via phone call from the district-level to the kecamatan-level and then individually to each village head before reaching the villagers. As it stands, therefore, the capacity for quicker delivery of tsunami warnings has not yet been optimally utilized in developing the protocol to be used in the event of an actual tsunami. Officials at the BPBD office recognized that the system was not yet being used optimally and explained that this was in part due to their concerns that village heads andor villagers would not trust text alerts coming from an unknown Figure 4: BPBD cell broadcasting unit in Kebumen, Central Java Source: Author’s photo phone numbers as the BPBD office enters into its system. As of April 2012, however, the only mobile phone numbers that had been entered into the system were those of the Kebumen BPBD office members most of them and the Bupati elected district head of Kebumen District. As a result, the alert would likely travel more quickly from the number. When it was suggested that they might provide trainings to village heads that would clarify how the system operated, the officials explained that the office did not have the resources for such trainings and blamed bureaucracy for the lack of initiative taken on fully implementing the cell- broadcasting program Interview with Ahkmad Sofwani and Made Wirawan, April 2012. Though the effectiveness of mobile phone enabled disaster alert systems in Indonesia is not yet clear, the use of ICTs to assist in disaster relief has at least on one occasion proven to be very successful. In the wake of the October 2010 eruption of Mt. Merapi in Yogyakarta, the organizations Jalin Merapi and Combine Resource Institution used Twitter to organize and distribute resources, particularly food and water, urgently needed by refugees who had survived the eruption. Volunteers used two- way handheld receivers or SMS text messaging via mobile phones to send information about TIK-ISI-INGGRIS-LAYOUT-06-OK12219 19 2222013 3:27:30 PM INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA the refugees and also about the volcanic activity to the organization Jalin Merapi. The information was then relayed to all of Jalin Merapi’s tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, and from Twitter then automatically shown on Jalin Merapi’s homepage and Facebook page and broadcasted over the community radio network Nugroho 2011. The website itself provided clear links to all forms of communication between volunteers and Jalin Merapi. Within a few hours, requests made for water via Twitter had been met and new requests were being made and met as needed. Jalin Merapi’s success supports the findings of Samarajiva and Waidyanatha who argue that a combination of SMS communication and a robust website are key factors in successfully using ICTs to enable cooperation between disaster relief agents 2009. Jalin Merapi goes a step further by heavily using social media as well. Air Putih Foundation also provided disaster assistance for the 2010 Merapi earthquake, as well as the 2011 tsunami in Mentawi. In these cases, Air Putih Foundation used mobile phone technology combined with mapping applications and SMS Gateway to map out reported information from various individuals on the ground. The mapping was done through an application called Ushahidi, though which people all over the world can tell the story of what is happening to them — or around them — during a disaster, and share their story through SMS texts. Air Putih Foundation is now also trying to develop “Open BTS” technology, a simplified version of mobile technology that could be setup for public use in rural areas without depending on a major network operator. In this way, they hope that it will be possible for communication to become organized by society rather than companies.

4.3. Mobile Phones and Maternal Health