The Effectiveness of Early Hazard System to Decrease

the Impact of Tsunami in Aceh

Aulia Dwi Putri
Correspondence e-mail: auliaputri12@gmail.com
Faculty of Exploration and Production Technology
Department Geological Engineering
Jalan Teuku Nyak Arief, Simprug, Kebayoran Lama, Jakarta Selatan 12120

ABSTRACT
Early Warning System is a framework which is work for giving each data about Earth's
occasion such as plate movement or an extreme climate change. It also can be an informer
about hazard identification in a country. Unfortunately, to anticipated Aceh tsunami in 12
years ago, Early Warning System did not have so much value to get at the impact. The
system ineffectiveness was caused by the lack of government participation to give more
information about the hazard and there is no education about how to be saved in a hazard.
The purpose of this research is to analyze and evaluate how important Early Warning
System cope with the hazard, especially tsunami in Aceh. To support it, I will use two
methods such as literature review and also the statistic data. According to the research,
Early Warning System is very important to give an information about the occurrence of
the hazard. Although it is not clear enough, it can be a parameter to prepare something
and also the mentality.

Keywords: Early Warning System, Tsunami, Hazard, Government, Education.

INTRODUCTION
Natural disaster such as earthquakes, tsunami, volcanic eruption, floods, landslide
and many others is part of our Earth. Unfortunately, many people did not adapt to the
natural hazard that may be caused a disaster around them. They lost everything they have
and get a huge impact. To decrease the impact of the disaster, we need to apply an Early
Warning System in the danger spot.
An Early Warning System is kind of communication system which gives every
information about Earth event that requires the understanding of risk and the
communication between government and local society. It works together with forecaster
and signal disturbances to prevent loss of life and reduces economics impact of the
disaster. To be effective, an Early Warning System needs to have a strong focus to
anticipate and solve the impact of the hazard.

Figure 1. Inundation Map of Tsunami in Aceh

 Referring to the problem, this paper was created to evaluate the impact of Tsunami
in Aceh and how important the Early Warning System cope with the hazard. In case of
the tsunami in Aceh, the government regulation to develop the local society to understand
the hazard and how to save their life in a hazard is very important. An intensive
communication is needed to decrease an error in understanding the Early Warning System
signal too when the hazard comes (Oktari, et al., 2014). Moreover, we also need to know
the estimation time of the tsunami because it is very important to minimize the number
of victims and increase the alertness of the hazard so that the local society can anticipate
the tsunami and also the government can set up a place for the evacuation (Syamsidik, et
al., 2015).

METHODOLOGY
This research was conducted to know the effectiveness of Early Warning System
to prevent the impact of the tsunami in Aceh. A literature study is needed to obtain some
essential data about the chronology of tsunami, the government regulation, hazard map,
and also the local society background. Some statistic data also needed to know how many
victims of the tsunami in each area of Aceh.

DISCUSSION
During the 2004 Tsunami in Indian Ocean, more than 70.000 people died and
more than one country was affected by the giant wave. The arrival time of the giant wave
was so fast after the earthquake shakes the Sumatra. There is some data about the victims
and arrival time of tsunami in that time.

Table 1. Data ETA and Victims of tsunami in Aceh

No Name of the city ETA Victims

1. Banda Aceh 35 min 3.000
2. Lhokseumawe 25 min 12.677
3. Aceh Utara 22 min 16.932
4. Bierun 20 min 9.703
5. Pidie 24 min 4.976
 6. Aceh Timur 29 min 4.461
7. Simeuleu 22 min 196
8. Sinabang 20 min 2.858

In order to prevent the impact of the tsunami, the government has been made some
preliminaries for Aceh. They have been collected some institution such as Aceh Disaster
Management Agency (BPBA), Pusdalops Aceh, Agency for Meteorology, Climatology,
and Geophysics (BMKG) to discuss the Early Warning System.
Actually, A tsunami warning system has three components, such as a network of
seismographs to accurately locate and determine the depth and magnitude of the
submarine and coastal earthquakes, an automated tidal gauge to measure unusual rises
and falls of sea level, and also the network of sensors connected to floating buoys. The
government has been tried to develop the technologies, so the Early Warning times of
tsunami arrival down to 10 – 15 minutes which include the integration of near real-time
GPS to monitoring the plate movement.
The government also published a regulation such as UU No. 24 Tahun 2007 which
focused on hazard countermeasures. In general, this role has been given us more safety
because the hazard countermeasures nowadays, not include the emergency response only.
To fix it up they divide the hazard into three phase:

Standby Emergency Recovery

Phase Phase Phase

In order to prevent the same disaster, the government gives the local society in
Aceh some education about Early Warning System. They also learn about the natural
hazard and the impact for their region too. In Early Warning System, there is some
element that should have fulfilled such as:
 Risk knowledge Warning service

Communication
Response
and
capability
dissemination

Besides the government role and natural disaster education, obviously in some
region such as Simeuleu and Aceh Besar the traditional songs and oral literature such as
hikayat and syair can be a disaster risk education tool. It was very successful and when
the tsunami comes, this area almost have no victims because they have an awareness to
save their life. But it is not useful for every region in Aceh because the societies will
assume that is only a beautiful poem or fairytale (Syafwina, 2014).

Example of “Smong”

Enggelmonsaocurito Please listen to this story

Inangmasosemonan one day in the past
Manoknopsaofano a village was sinking
Uwilah da sesewan that what have been told
Unen ne aleklinon starting with earthquakes
Fesangbakat ne mali following by giant wave
Manoknopsaohampong whole the country was sinking
Tibo-tibomawi immediately
Angalinon ne mali if the strong earthquake
uweksuruiksahuli followed by the lowering of sea water
Maheyamihawali please find in hurry
Fano me singatenggi a higher place
Ede smongkahanne It is called “Smong”
Turiang da nenekta a history of our ancestor
Miredemteher ere please always remember
Pesandannavi da the message and instruction
Smongdumek-dumekmo Smong is your bath
linonuwak-uwakmo Earthquakes is your swing bed
elaikkeundang-keundangmo thunderstorm is your music
kileklampu-lampumu thunderlight is your lamp

CONCLUSION
Early Warning System is a very important framework to minimize the victims of
the tsunami in Aceh. They are so many ways to study the preventive about the hazard,
especially tsunami. To decrease the number of lost and victims, there is need a lot of
awareness from the local society besides the government regulation. The data has been
proved that without the education, the number of loss and victim when the tsunami is
arriving will not decrease.

REFERENCES
Basher, Reid. 2006. Global Early Warning System for Natural Hazards: Systematic and
People-Centred in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2006) 364 p 2167 – 2182.
Oktari, Rina Suryani et al. 2014. Effectiveness of Dissemination and Communication
Element of Tsunami Early Warning System in Aceh in Procedia Economics &
Finance 18 p 136-142.
Syafwina. 2014. Recognizing Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Management: Smong,
Early Warning System from Simeuleu Island, Aceh in Procedia Environmental
Sciences 20 (2014) p 573 – 582.
Syamsidik et al. 2015. Development of Accurate Tsunami Estimated Times of Arrival for
Tsunami-Prone Cities in Aceh, Indonesia in International Journal of Disaster Risk
Reduction.
Veen, B.A.D. Van et al. 2012. Tsunami Flood Modelling for Aceh and West Sumatera
and Its Application for an Early Warning System in Continental Shelf Research 79
(2014) p 46-53.