Impact Of La Nina Until February, Padang Residents Asked To Stay Away From Beaches, Fishermen Please Be Alert When Fishing

Members of the Pariaman City BPBD are evacuating the residents' canopy which was damaged by the wind (ANTARA/HO-BPBD Pariaman City)

WEST SUMATRA - The City Government of Pariaman, West Sumatra appealed to residents and tourists in the area to increase their vigilance to anticipate the impact of La Nina which is hitting Indonesia until February 2022.

"We are definitely always on standby to deal with disasters that befall the community", said Head of the Pariaman City Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Azman in Pariaman, Antara, Friday, November 5.

Residents and tourists should also increase vigilance by not swimming at the beach when the weather is bad. Vehicles are also not parked under trees to prevent them from falling when they fall.

Azman also asked fishermen to look at the signs issued by related parties before going to sea because they could be caught in the storm. "At the beach, we will prohibit tourists from swimming and for fishermen, there are green and red flags to inform them about the weather", he said.

He conveyed that today there was also a strong wind which damaged the canopy of the Santok Village residents and fortunately did not cause any casualties.

He said natural disasters in Pariaman were dominated by fallen trees due to strong winds, while other potential disasters were earthquakes and tsunamis.

"There used to be flooded but now, thank God, there are no more. As for landslides, it's people who work on making bricks", he said.

Previously, the La Nina event was back in October 2021. La Nina is an event that increases the growth of rain clouds in Indonesia. This phenomenon is due to the interaction of the oceans and the atmosphere/air that affect the world's weather and climate globally.

BMKG on October 29, 2021, has held a National Coordination Meeting inviting all parties to prepare an action plan to deal with it. BMKG (Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysical Agency) said that La Nina is not the same every time it happens.

La Nina has various impacts in each region and the time and peak does not necessarily coincide with the peak impact of its occurrence. The BMKG predicts that La Nina will peak around January and February 2022.

The events are divided into three categories, namely weak with a small value of minus 0.5-1, moderate minus 1-2 and strong values above minus 2. Since 2010 moderate La Nina events have occurred twice, namely June 2010 to February 2011 and September 2020 until January 2021.