Barrataga: Earthquake Resistant Houses

By: Sarlota Wantaar, S.Pd.          

Disasters occur unpredictably and often threaten human life, for this reason, it is necessary to live side by side with disasters and have the knowledge and readiness to deal with them. In Indonesia, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) revealed that in 2022 there were 3.544 disasters, such as floods, extreme weather and landslides, forest and land fires, earthquakes, tidal waves and abrasion, and droughts. Some people do not fully understand how to anticipate and deal with disaster, resulting in many victims and losses when it occurs. So, everyone needs to know about disaster readiness.

The above thoughts are the starting point for Stube HEMAT to equip students in Yogyakarta coming from various regions in Indonesia, to know the threat of disasters in their area, how to prepare themselves, and what kind of proper education for the local community. With the theme 'Do We Ready to Face Disaster?' Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta and students made a study visit to the earthquake museum of Prof. Dr. Sarwidi in Kaliurang, Special Region of Yogyakarta (Monday, May 1, 2023).

In this exposure, Trustha Rembaka, the coordinator of Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta, introduced the institution and students to Prof. Dr. Sarwidi and the museum staff. He also conveyed the purpose of the study visit to enrich students' insights about earthquake preparedness and references to earthquake-resistant buildings. Next, Prof. Dr. Sarwidi introduced the earthquake museum than began since July 2006 as a public education as well as an educational tourist spot. This idea came up because the Indonesian people did not fully understand the dangers of natural disasters.

He said that earthquakes occur because the earth is 'alive', meaning the earth is moving. When it moves, the earth releases energy and causes earthquakes from small to strong energy. If the earth does not release energy, it is dangerous because the earth can explode. So, people have to adapt to the earthquake phenomenon, from self-awareness, and knowledge to the quality of infrastructure for building public facilities. Participants explored earthquake models, replicas of destroyed buildings, and miniatures of Barrataga constructions found by Prof. Dr. Sarwidi since 2003.

Barrataga is an earthquake-resistant house building taking into the shape of the house by considering the locality, so the building design uses a common house with reinforcement in certain parts, such as walls, frames, and foundations, to the roof structure. These parts are designed to be an integral system. A layer of sand under the foundation with a certain thickness as a damper, modified concrete reinforcement to adapt to tensile forces and remain flexible, reinforcement of walls with columns using anchors, and modification of fibrous walls to reduce the brittleness of the walls.

With current advanced technological developments, participants studied the InaRISK, an application that provides regional data and disaster threats, affected populations, and potential losses, including disaster mitigation guidelines, so that people can recognize specific disaster threats in the area where they live and disaster risk reduction steps. The students also downloaded this application and practiced mapping disaster threats. They filled out a questionnaire to measure whether their house was earthquake-resistant or not, according to the existing application instructions. It turned out that most of their houses were not suitable for earthquake-resistant construction structures.

From this exposure, Mensiana Baya, a student from East Sumba said, “I just found out that there is an application that helps the house-building process. This is very helpful when building a house and I can share it with my family. This visit was very valuable because my study was in the education department and there was no specific lesson about disasters and building structures.”

Ready or not, earthquakes surely happen, and humans must adapt with enough knowledge about earthquakes and other disasters. With knowledge about strong infrastructure, a safer life can be achieved. ***