Having Awareness about Disaster

Turgo Exposure Reflection

by Daniel Prasdika (Lampung)

On Saturday, February 27, 2021, we visited Turgo, the closest village to the peak of Mount Merapi, with a radius of 5 kms, as part of the Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta program on the topic 'Climate Change and Life Survival'. This activity was held to build students’ awareness about climate change and how to maintain the survival of both humans and the environment. Turgo became a place for me and Stube's friends to have dialogue directly with residents and to discuss information about what had happened during the several eruptions of Mount Merapi. Several residents became sources of information when we visited. They were Misran as the head of the village, Sariyem, and Mbah Hadi as residents and facilitated by Indra Baskoro Adi, S.Psi., M.M.B, a practitioner of disaster management.

There were several things as the topic of discussion or questions during the visit, such as what the role of the government during a disaster was, when Mount Merapi had started to show signs of increasing activity, how people recognized Mount Merapi was about to erupt, what signs of an eruption are, especially before the eruption, what the experience of the residents during the eruption, where the Turgo residents fled to refuge, and several other questions.

One of the speakers we interviewed, namely Misran, said that now there has been direct action from the local government by conducting education and socialization related to the eruption of Mount Merapi, avoiding river areas when it erupts, providing shelter for residents, and initiating a sister village where the village in Turgo partnered with a village in a safe area that became a place of refuge if an eruption occurred any time.

According to Indra Baskoro's explanation, based on Law No. 24 2007, the implementation of disaster management in situations where there is a potency for a disaster to occur, include preparation to ensure prompt and appropriate efforts to deal with disaster that can be carried out through the preparation and trial of disaster emergency management plans, organizing, installing, and testing early warning systems, provision and preparation of supplies to meet basic needs. For example, a standby bag containing securities, drinking water, and dry food. Early Warning serves to convey the latest information on the status of Merapi's activities and the actions that must be taken by various parties and especially by the community who are threatened with danger, for example, sirens and communication tools. Mitigation is a series of efforts to reduce disaster risk, both through physical development as well as awareness and capacity building to deal with disaster threats, for example in the form of self-help observation posts and patrol teams observing the peak of Merapi. Disaster Emergency Response is a series of activities carried out immediately at the time of a disaster to deal with the bad effects caused, which include rescue and evacuation of victims, property, fulfillment of basic needs, protection, management of refugees, rescue, and restoration of infrastructure and facilities. For example, the sister village of Turgo village and one of the villages in Ngaglik district.

In this exposure, we found a variety of new knowledge, and it turned out that four levels indicate the activity of Mount Merapi, from normal active, aware, alert, and danger, each of which has certain conditions. We were very equipped with a variety of useful information, we hope that we have self-preparation to anticipate disasters, how to act during disasters, and post-disasters that cannot be predicted when they occur.***