Indonesia Prone To Disasters, Mitigation Touch In Natural-Energy-Based Industry Is Important

BMKG as a mitigation measure installed water level on the island near Mount Anak Krakatau to monitor tsunami waves in the Sunda Strait due to the earthquake. (Between-Sigid K)

JAKARTA - Mitigation has become substantial in Indonesia, which has abundant natural resources and energy, but is in the ring of fire so that it has the potential to be hit by natural disasters such as earthquakes, extreme weather to volcanoes.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs 20014-2015 as well as the Supervisory Board and Trustees of cTIS, Prof. Indroyono Susilo, sees that it is time for industries related to natural resources and energy in the country to be literate in mitigation technology amid the threat of natural disasters.

"The oil and mineral and gas industries must also be prepared to deal with these disasters because the route is a disaster there," he said during the 'Ngopi Together: Disaster Mitigation-Based Industry with a Touch of Technology and Innovation' broadcast on the BNPB Indonesia YouTube channel, Thursday, March 28.

Indroyono said a number of industries had implemented mitigation technology. Although it started with being exposed to natural disasters first, in fact, after implementing it, it was proven that an incident that was detrimental did not happen again.

"I give an example, for example, one of the oil refineries in Cilacap is often burned, what happens? Oh, it turns out that it's a lightning area. Finally, our experts from ITB built lightning rods so that the oil refineries would not be hit by lightning," he said.

According to him, investing in natural resources coincides with awareness of natural disasters so that the view of mitigation becomes high. Because disaster mitigation has an impact in order to realize investment targets.

"So that the disaster is suppressed but our resources can be utilized," he said.

He also emphasized that Indonesia has a great wealth that must be maintained. However, exploitation of natural resources and abundant energy requires mitigation.

"Since the beginning of mitigation, it must not let the industry invest only to explore but must be ready to mitigate," he said.