West Sumatra to build Rp 34b tsunami evacuation building

The Jakarta Post | Sat, 12/19/2009 2:53 PM

The West Sumatra administration is set to construct a tsunami evacuation building within the Gubernatorial Office compound in the city of Padang worth Rp 34 billion (US$3.6 million)

Dodi Ruswandi, head of the administration's Road, Spatial Plan and Residential Area Agency, said Saturday that the province has acquired Rp 17 billion for the project from the central government.

“We have completed the design and we are going to auction the construction tender on January,” he said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Dodi said that the building would have four stories with two of the upper ones to be used for people to evacuate during tsunami disaster and the lower stories for administration offices.

The evacuation stories would also function as sports halls.

“The offices will only use light material partitions to ensure easy pulling down,” he said.

Dodi said that the building would be used as a model for city and regency administrations to build their own tsunami evacuation buildings.

The House of Representatives approved earlier this year the release of a Rp 300 billion (US$ 30 million) relief fund to assist reconstruction and rehabilitation in areas destroyed by a powerful earthquake in the province a in September.

The 7.9 -magnitude quake killed over 1,100 people, destroying tens of thousands buildings and houses in the coastal province.

Some experts have warned that the area, which lies near the colliding Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates, will bear the brunt of Indonesia's next major earthquake, as the final segment along the stretch is shifting and is expected to unleash a massive amount of energy.

The zone's other segment has already cracked, a large portion of it off Aceh. This crack triggered the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.