Three months have passed since the powerful earthquake that ravaged West Sumatra, but conditions remain dire for the many survivors still living in damaged homes, tents and makeshift shelters. The Jakarta Post’s Indah Setiawati and Syofiardi Bachyul Jb. spoke recently with the quake victims about their current conditions and how they continued with their lives amid dimming hopes for their future.
Mirawati, 27-year-old resident of Durian Gadang hamlet in Tungkal Selatan village, North Pariaman district, and her family are using their henhouse as shelter.
The henhouse is considered more comfortable than a tent, prone to being affected by rain.
In Kasik Putih village, Epa Mul-yani and her family have taken refuge in their damaged house while waiting for the government to disburse funds to rebuild it.
Survivors want to know when the fund will be disbursed.
“I don’t have information about when we will receive the funds, I can’t calculate how much money I should borrow from my relatives,” Epa said.
The 28-year-old said she was afraid that rain and strong wind would further damage her house. Her family’s bedroom wall was destroyed by the quake and has been replaced by a plastic canvas.
In Padang, a number of local government agencies relocated their offices to a bus terminal, as the reconstruction of office buildings has not begun.
Tungkal Selatan village chief Fikrianto said he was not aware about the disbursement of housing reconstruction funds. He was surprised to learn that the central government had recently disbursed some funds to the West Sumatra provincial administration.
“I was not informed. Will Tungkal Selatan be included as a recipient?” he asked The Jakarta Post.
He said his village urgently needed the funds to start reconstruction because the majority of houses were damaged and residents, mostly farmers, could not afford to rebuild.
“Some residents harvested their paddies, but they received less income from the harvest before the Sept. 30, 2009 earthquake, as farmers were focused on providing temporary shelters to their families,” Fikrianto said.
He said at least 307 buildings were heavily damaged while the remaining 60 suffered slight to medium damage.
Local residents, he added, also needed loans to fix damaged sewing machines to restart their enterprises, a source of income in the village.
Bakri Beck, deputy chief of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said his office would immediately start reconstructing damaged houses following the disbursement of 5 percent of Rp 6.4 trillion (US$680,000) allocated from the state budget.
Acting West Sumatra Governor Marlis Rahman confirmed the disbursement of Rp 313.93 billion, which his administration received recently from the central government.
He said most of the fund would be used to rebuild houses in certain areas and the remaining money to boost the economy and build infrastructure and public facilities.
West Sumatra building assessment team chief Febrin Anas Ismail said some Rp 115 billion of the disbursed fund would be used to renovate houses in six districts in six cities/regencies that encountered the most damage.
If the fund is divided equally among the six districts, each will only receive Rp 19.1 billion. The six districts are Patamuan (Padang Pariaman regency), Koto Tengah (Padang city), North Pariaman (Pariaman city), Bayang (Pesisir Selatan regency) and Luhak Nan Duo (Pasaman Barat regency).
“The renovation project will be controlled by teams. Similar projects at other districts will be carried out in 2010 and 2011 by using the previous six districts’ pattern of construction,” Febrin told the Post, adding that the reconstruction of government buildings would start later in 2010.
Data from the building assessment team shows that 114,797 houses were severely damaged, 67,198 sustained medium damage and 67,838 slight damage.
Febrin said the data would be updated during the reconstruction phase.
Severely damaged houses would receive Rp 15 million from the central government and Rp 10 million for houses with medium damage. The municipal/regency administration would provide Rp 1 million for houses with slight damage.
“The funds would be distributed in three stages to the residents concerned,” Bakri said.
He said experts from Andalas University and Bandung Institute of Technology would supervise the reconstruction process.
Bakri also said the government would meet with representatives from NGOs and donor countries to discuss the amount of fund aid they had pledged to contribute to a Rp 6.4 trillion in total needed to help reconstruct West Sumatra post quake.
Out of the amount, Rp 3.16 trillion would be used to rebuild houses for quake victims, Rp 1.26 trillion for public facilities such as schools and hospitals, Rp 189.4 billion for public utilities, such as irrigation facilities, and Rp 1.09 trillion for government buildings, as well as Rp 34.6 billion for a disaster reduction program.
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