KSAD Maruli ensures that the construction of the bridge in Aceh continues to progress.

Chief of Staff of the Army (KSAD) General Maruli Simanjuntak. (IST)

JAKARTA - The Emergency Task Force for the Bridge and Chief of Staff of the Army (KSAD) General TNI Maruli Simanjuntak, ensured that the construction of bridges in disaster-affected areas in Aceh would continue. Although, he admitted that there were still many obstacles to be faced in the field so that there were still many areas that had not been built bridges.

This was conveyed by Maruli in response to a request for the construction of a bridge in Aceh Tamiang during a coordination meeting of the Post-Disaster Recovery Task Force for Sumatra held by the leadership of the Indonesian House of Representatives in Aceh today, Tuesday, December 30.

"From us, for the bridge is, because we need a fairly long process to work on this bridge, first, we have to survey the place, what kind of bridge is the right place. We have decided that there are three types of bridges that we will make, Bailey bridges, Armco bridges, with pioneer bridges or suspension bridges, which are more than that, maybe our suggestion is that the work in PU only works because it will be a little complicated," said Maruli in a meeting broadcast on the official channel of the DPR RI, Tuesday, December 30.

"After we surveyed, we first looked for goods in Jakarta. We sent them to Aceh. In Aceh, they also came down at the port, they wanted to shift to a place for processing, there were many obstacles on the road, some of them were up to one week, sir, waiting for completion," he continued.

However, Maruli said, so far there have been around 24 bailey bridges in Aceh that have been surveyed. "This may also continue to increase, but we continue to adjust to the number of Bailey we have," he said.

"And thank God, our President has planned to buy Bailey bridges from foreign countries. Even then, almost no one has ready stock, so it was collected from several countries to be able to supply Bailey bridges at this disaster site," he continued.

In addition to deploying bailey bridges, Maruli said, his party had also prepared an Armco bridge at 39 points in Aceh, along with its equipment. "The suspension bridge is also continuing to survey. We also have to keep shopping. We are lucky if we can still buy it in Medan, it's easier, but if we buy it from Jakarta, the process is quite long," he said.

"But we don't stop, Governor, Regent, yes we don't stop. I'm not saying that the survey problem needs to have groups that understand. If we can survey up to how many it's good, Pak, convince what is good there. Because in the field there are those who are wide so that what was initially could be Bailey, it turned out that it couldn't and so on," he added.

Maruli ensures that the construction of bridges in Aceh will continue to be carried out. According to Maruli, the Armco bridge is very effective if it can be carried out, especially on roads that are divided by water.

"So that's roughly what we're working on, while in Aceh there are only 11 Bailey bridges that are possible, and Armco I think it needs social to the regions so that they understand more and also the suspension bridge later we will continue to increase the team to start working. I also have data that there are indeed more than 400 in Aceh that need suspension bridges," said Maruli.

"Hopefully, if our teams can be formed more in the future, maybe in the next few months we can solve the problems of these bridges," he concluded.

Previously, the Regent of Aceh Tamiang Armia Pahmi reported that the worst bridge was in four villages. Namely in Balingkarang village, Pematangdurian, Lubuksiduk and Pangkalan village. He asked the government to immediately build an emergency bridge.

"Please allow Mr. Kasad, the Tamiang river has widened and is shallow. But if the emergency bridge is not possible to build there because of the length that is not possible for that, because it is prone, but there is one village that can possibly be made an emergency bridge because this is our lifeline to be able to go to the city. We have also reported to BNPB, Mr. Dandim to be able to immediately propose to install the bridge," said Armia.

The coordination meeting of the Sumatra Post-Disaster Recovery Task Force held by the DPR RI was attended by the Deputy Speaker of the DPR RI, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, Saan Mustopa and Cucun Ahmad Syamsurijal.

As well as the Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian, Minister of Public Works Dody Hanggodo, Minister of Transportation Dudy Purwagandhi, Minister of Social Affairs Syaifullah Yusuf, Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, Deputy Head of BNPB, Deputy Minister of Digital Communications,

Special Presidential Envoy for Youth Raffi Ahmad, as well as the President Director of PT Telkomsel and the President Director of PLN.