Dansatgas: Shallow Rivers And Hoaxes Hinder Semeru's Handling

Commander of the Command Post for Disaster Emergency Response Impact of Hot Clouds and Fall of Mount Semeru, Danrem 083/Baladhika Jaya Colonel Inf Irwan Subekti/PHOTO VIA ANTARA

JAKARTA - The Commander of the Command Post for Emergency Response to the Impact of Hot Clouds and Fall of Mount Semeru, Danrem 083/Baladhika Jaya Colonel Inf. Irwan Subekti emphasized that the shallowing of the riverbed and hoaxes hampered the handling of the eruption of Mount Semeru.

"I take this opportunity to report that the problem in the field is the shallowing of the river in the village's kobokan every day," said Irwan at a press conference on the Review of Disaster Events in December and Developments after the Eruption of Mount Semeru, quoted by Antara, Friday, December 10.

Irwan explained, the silting of the riverbed was caused by the high average rainfall during the afternoon to the afternoon, so it had the potential to cause flooding. Therefore, when carrying out the process of searching for disaster victims, it is necessary to increase vigilance.

In addition to the silting of the river, another thing that causes the handling process to be hampered is that the sand around the river is still smoky and hot. This makes the search process carried out manually by the SAR team or heavy equipment very limited.

“The search process manually by the SAR team as well as by heavy equipment is still very limited. Even though there are indications, the information we need to explore is at certain points where we must carry out a search," he stressed.

Irwan regretted that the existence of hoaxes such as information about looting interfered with the information provided by his party and a number of related officers, causing unrest in the community.

According to Irwan, the presence of refugees who fled to the homes of relatives and family outside the area also made it necessary for his party to pay close attention to the data on refugees who currently have left the city.

Finally, the large number of volunteers and the community who care about the victims of the disaster, actually hampers the traffic process in the disaster area.

This then makes the handling not optimal and dangerous, because it makes traffic more congested and the disaster location is prone to extreme weather.

"We ask the community that if we are going to provide assistance, just a few vehicles, not flocking to disaster areas," he said.