Government Opens Relocation Option For Residents' Houses For West Sumatra Flash Flood Victims

Head of the Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Suharyanto said the government opened an option to relocate the houses of residents who were victims of the flash flood disaster in West Sumatra and were near the river.

"For the relocation, we are currently assessing, we have provided recommendations at the transition stage for rehabilitation of reconstruction whether there is relocation, if there is relocation, the local government will prepare land and the central government will build it. If it is not relocated, then we will prepare other options such as repairs," said Suharyanto in his statement, Wednesday, May 15.

In post-disaster handling, BNPB will repair a number of public facilities, damaged houses and pay attention to the recovery needs of survivors affected by the cold lava flood and landslides.

Then, houses that were damaged will be given damage to the house stimulant assistance with details of the value of 60 million Rupiah for severe damage, 30 million Rupiah for moderate damage, and 15 million Rupiah for minor damage.

Efforts made to accelerate emergency handling carried out by the government together with relevant stakeholders aim to make people able to start their lives and livelihoods as soon as possible.

"The average emergency response status is 14 days, this is quite a long time so we want to carry out as quickly as possible from emergency to rehabilitation because these 14 days are for the community for a long time," said Suharyanto.

As one of the efforts to accelerate the emergency handling of cold lava and landslide flash floods, BNPB together with the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) will carry out weather modification technology (TMC) operations.

The TMC operation was held to support the evacuation process and improvement of existing facilities and infrastructure. So that emergency handling is not hampered by bad weather which still has the potential to occur according to estimates by the BMKG for the West Sumatra region.

"We do not want the business at this emergency response stage to be hampered again because of the rain and bad weather so that there is a follow-up disaster, so today the aircraft has moved to carry out weather modification technology tomorrow, we will continue again in the West Sumatra region, it is hoped that in the next week there will be no rain," explained Suharyanto.

Based on the report from the BNPB Center for Control and Operations (Pusdalops) today as of 18.35 WIB, the number of victims who died due to the West Sumatra flash flood was recorded at 58 people, while the missing victims increased from 27 to 35 people in the search.

In addition, 1,543 families were affected and 33 people were injured as a result of the disaster that occurred on Saturday, May 11.