Padang - Sebanyak 2.000 orang siswa dari 18 SMA dan SMK di Kota Padang, Sumatera Barat (Sumbar), mengikuti latihan mitigasi bencana di lapangan Imam Bonjol Padang, difasilitasi lembaga kemanusiaan Aksi Cepat Tanggap (ACT).

Director of Community Network ACT, Rini Maryani di sela-sela acara, Sabtu (31/1), mengatakan pelatihan terbuka tersebut diberikan agar peserta lebih teredukasi dan memiliki pemahaman lengkap mengenai mitigasi bencana.

"Sumbar merupakan salah satu daerah rawan bencana, sehingga masyarakatnya harus memiliki pemahaman terhadap mitigasi bencana tersebut," ujarnya.

Siswa yang menjadi peserta pelatihan menurut dia, diharapkan dapat menjadi agen edukasi bagi teman sebaya atau pelajar di tingkat bawahnya.

Menurut dia, pihaknya mengapresiasi dukungan Gubernur Sumbar Irwan Prayitno dan Wali Kota Padang, Mahyeldi Ansharullah yang mendukung penuh pelatihan tersebut.

Dia juga mengapresiasi Dinas Pendidikan (Disdik) Padang yang mendukung kegiatan mitigasi dan perlindungan diri masyarakat terhadap bencana itu.

"Kami optimis, dengan pemahaman yang lebih baik terhadap mitigasi akan dapat mengurangi resiko korban jiwa saat terjadi bencana," katanya.

Acara tersebut, jelasnya, sekalian dalam rangka penandatanganan perjanjian kerjasama antara ACT dan Sentra Pelajar Indonesia (SPIN) untuk program "Komunitas Gemar Berbagi".

"Program itu diharapkan akan mengaktivasi kanal-kanal kemanusiaan di Kota Padang," kata dia.

Salah seorang peserta, Murni mengaku mendapatkan pemahaman yang lebih baik dalam hal menghadapi situasi saat bencana.

Dia menambahkan akan menginformasikan apa yang didapatnya kepada teman dan warga lingkungan sekitar tempat tinggalnya.

sumber: hanter
 

Cosentry, an Omaha-based provider of data storage and services, is expanding its ability to take over a firm’s Internet presence or website functions in the event of a disaster or power outage.

“Due to its complex nature, disaster recovery services have primarily been embraced by corporations with large IT support staff,” said Brad Hokamp, the company’s chief executive.

“Cosentry is making disaster recovery available to a wider market.”

The company, which operates nine data centers throughout the Midwest, provides a full range of IT services to businesses that want to outsource some or all of their data and IT needs — from hardware to software to cloud-based storage.

Clients “can have their applications running on our infrastructure,” said Craig Hurley, vice president of product management.

“A lot of companies don’t want to maintain their own data centers and want to reduce their IT infrastructure,” he said.

Businesses can use the company’s services, Hurley said, allowing them to concentrate on “what they do best.” Cosentry’s new tag line, “We operate, you innovate,” is intended to reflect that focus.

Cosentry’s expanded disaster recovery services follows the firm’s acquisition last year of additional data centers in Milwaukee and St. Louis. Cosentry a year ago acquired Xiolink, St. Louis’ largest provider of managed data hosting services and data center colocation, and last fall it acquired data center provider Red Anvil in Milwaukee.

The company will be expanding two of its data centers this year: the existing data center in Lenexa, Kansas, and the newly acquired Milwaukee facility.

Cosentry’s nine data centers are in Bellevue; Papillion; Lenexa, Kansas; Kansas City; St. Louis; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Milwaukee.

The company employs about 240 people, most of whom work in the company’s Omaha headquarters, and has annual revenue of between $60 million and $80 million.

Life would be a lot better if we can just shoo away typhoons, plug the craters of volcanoes to prevent them from erupting, or hold the plates underneath us to keep them from shaking the ground and toppling buildings and ripping highways apart.

These terrifying and unwanted events and their terrible impact – thousands of lives lost, families displaced, and livelihood disrupted – are parts of the normal life in the Philippines, a country situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire and in the path of typhoons.

Climate change has only worsened our situation, with experts predicting more extreme weather disturbances as the new normal. A recent example of our vulnerability to weather’s whims was the visit of Pope Francis to Leyte last Saturday. He was scheduled to spend almost half a day in Tacloban and Palo to celebrate a Mass, meet with the victims of super-typhoon Yolanda, and lead other activities, but rain and strong winds from Mekkhala/Amang, the first tropical storm of 2015, forced him to fly back to Manila after less than an hour in Leyte.

The Pope, who told the Yolanda victims he knew what happened in November, 2013, even though he was in Rome, got a firsthand taste of what Filipinos, particularly those in Eastern Visayas, have to go through throughout their lives. Each year, 18 to 20 typhoons strike the country.

The Philippines is also located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where most of the world’s volcanoes are located. Countries on the “ring” – Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines – account for most of the earthquakes that happen in the world. The memories of the 2011 earthquake that triggered a tsunami, caused a nuclear meltdown and killed nearly 16,000 people are still fresh in the minds of the Japanese. The areas affected by the nuclear disaster remain ghost towns.

The magnitude-7.2 earthquake that hit Bohol on October 15, 2013, was weaker than the magnitude-9.0 that hit Japan, but it was one of the strongest recorded in the Philippines, leaving more than 200 people dead and destroying many historical churches.

The Philippines has more than 30 volcanoes, of which more than 20 are considered active, and a few, like Mayon and Taal, are permanently monitored. Mount Pinatubo, which for many centuries was just a part of the mountainous part of Zambales, erupted in 1991, and its effects were felt worldwide: The massive amount of gas and ash caused a temporary half-degree centigrade drop in global temperatures. The millions of tons of lahar spewed out of the volcano permanently changed the river system in parts of Central Luzon.

The US Embassy in Manila, recognizing the risks from natural calamities faced by Americans visiting or living in the Philippines, has published on its website information to help US citizens “prepare for any disaster that may occur.

The key word is “preparation.” In my view, successful preparation means a system backed up by the most accurate disaster information like weather forecasts, which in turn, can happen if we have the most advanced technology and equipment.

We have a pool of competent and well-trained weather forecasters, volcanologists, and other scientists (that is why some of them are pirated by foreign entities), but they need the best equipment and the latest technology to do their task well.

As a country prone to disasters, we should be the leader in weather or disaster forecasting and monitoring. The price for a nation ill-prepared for disasters is too stiff to pay: Thousands of lives lost, families displaced, vital facilities destroyed and economic growth disrupted.

We saw the terrible destruction wrought by super typhoon Yolanda in 2013. In 2014, timely preparations reduced the disastrous impact of typhoon Ruby, which was initially expected to become another super-typhoon.

Yet, we still count casualties and measure damage: Ruby left P5.09 billion worth of damage and 18 dead. Typhoon Seniang, a weak typhoon that hit the country in the last days of December, brought heavy rains and triggered floods, leaving 66 people dead and more than 100,000 families displaced.

These are continuing wake-up calls and reminders for the government to modernize our weather and disaster forecasting equipment and technology. Because of our situation, our objective and attitude should be that the Philippines should be the leader in this field.

In closing, I share the gladness of my countrymen and their deep appreciation for the visit of Pope Francis in the Philippines.

Managua, Feb 6 (Prensa Latina) Strengthening disaster preparedness remains today on the agenda of the Nicaraguan authorities, which will soon conduct evacuation practices in schools. According to the coordinator of the Communication and Citizenship Council, Rosario Murillo, such exercises will take place from next February 16 to 21.

Practices will begin on Monday of that week in the northern departments of Estelí, Madriz, Nueva Segovia, Jinotega and Matagalpa.

Schools of León, Chinandega and Managua will do it on Tuesday, and Masaya, Granada, Carazo and Rivas on Wednesday.

The rest of the week, correspond to departments as Boaco, Chontales, Rio San Juan, and the autonomous regions of North and South Atlantic.

According to the advisor to the President for Educational Affairs, Salvador Vanegas, drills will last about 11 minutes, while the training given to teachers will take several hours.

Recently Murillo said that such exercises should be repeated in the third week of each month, with the objective of maintaining teachers and students prepared for natural disasters.

'This helps us to evacuate quickly, to face any eventuality,' she said, recalling that Nicaragua is a country of high seismic risk.

The Central American nation is located in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of more than 40,000 kilometers that concentrates most active volcanoes in the world and where telluric events happen more frequently and magnitude.

cite from: http://www.plenglish.com

Reportase Hari 3
Kamis, 28 Mei 2015

Pertemuan Ilmiah Tahunan (PIT) Riset Kebencanaan 2015

Membangun Kemandirian Industrialisasi dan
 Teknologi Berbasis Riset Kebencanaan Indonesia

Gedung Graha Sabha Pramana
Universitas Gadjah Mada

Reportase oleh Madelina Ariani

Pembaca website bencana kesehatan, senang sekali bahwa dihari kedua kemarin untuk kita sektor kesehatan telah mendapat wadah dalam bencana, yakni Epidemi dan wabah penyakit sebagai bencana non alam. Dengan hal ini kedepannya kita tidak bekerja sendiri jika menghadapi epidemi dan wabah.

Pembaca website bencana kesehatan, hari ini adalah hari penutupan PIT IABI. Agenda hari ini adalah pleno terbuka, munas, pameran dan dialog publik, serta penutupan. Pleno dari bidang kesehatan di sampaikan oleh Prof. Edi Raharjo yang berbicara mengenai ahli kesehatan dalam kebencanaan. Diantaranya beliau membahas mengenai

1. WASH/ water, sanitation, and hygiene yang berdasarkan dari pengalaman Gempa Haiti.
2. SPGDT bahwa jika korban sudah harus diatur penempatannya mulai dari triase di lapangan dan transport.

Siangnya berlangsung penutupan PIT IABI 2015. Penyampaian pesan disampaikan oleh Deputi Kesiapsiagaan BNPB dan Wakil Rektor UGM. Dalam pesannya, melalui IABI harapannya semua kalangan dapat bersatu untuk bersumbangsih menciptakan Indonesia yang tangguh bencana. Dalam kesempatan ini, juga diumumkan mengenai pelaksanaan PIT IABI 2016 mendatang di ITB. Seluruh peserta berdiri untuk menyanyikan lagu nasional Padamu Negeri. Selamat berjumpa pada PIT IABI ketiga tahun 2016. Semoga semakin besar konstribusi civitas kesehatan dalam riset kebencanaan ke depannya.

The world can learn from the turnaround of the Philippines' disaster awareness as shown by its experiences with super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in 2013 and Typhoon Ruby (Hagupit) in 2014, a US surgeon who took part in the response to both disasters, said.

Michael Karch, a surgeon with Mammoth Hospital in Mammoth Lakes, California, said learning lessons from Yolanda and applying them during Ruby may have saved the lives of some 1.7 million Filipinos.

"The preemptive actions of the Philippine government, military, medical, and civilian sectors should serve as valuable lessons for the rest of the world as we collectively begin to embrace mass casualty education and preparedness on an individual, national, and international platform," Karch said in a blog post.

Yolanda, which tore through the Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013, left more than 6,300 dead.

In contrast, Ruby - which, like Yolanda, packed powerful winds and posed a major threat - resulted in 18 deaths. The lower casualty count was in part due to massive evacuations in areas Ruby was projected to hit.

Karch said Yolanda's destruction had been described as the "Night of 1,000 Knives,” due to the flying debris that "wreaked injury and death on the Filipino population."

In contrast, he said, Ruby could be dubbed the "Night of a Million and a Half Flames" referring to 1.7 million plus people who survived the typhoon.

"Widespread public health and civil defense measures that had been established in the interim between Haiyan and Hagupit were initiated in the days before landfall," he said.

Karch, who said he served as a team leader in Civilian Mobile Forward Surgical Teams (CMFSTs) in the aftermath of both typhoons, found certain patterns that he said are reproducible.

"Valuable lessons can be taken from each and applied to the next. The initial differences between the disaster response to Typhoons Haiyan versus Hagupit are striking. The simple fact that the Philippine government was able to evacuate more than a million and a half million citizens out of harm's way is a testament to their dedication to learn and evolve as super storms occur on a more frequent basis," he said.

"Although the response to Hagupit was not perfect, it was much improved from that of Haiyan. The use of progressive communication through social media and Short Message Service (SMS) texting played a large role in this success," he added.

Karch likened the turnaround to super storms Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2013 in the US.

"As with Haiyan, the Hurricane Katrina experience was a glaring low point in terms of public opinion and confidence in governmental response to natural disaster. The government response to Hurricane Sandy showed marked improvement in pre-emptive planning and execution on the part of federal, state and city government," he said.

"The recent Philippine Hagupit experience provides us with another opportunity to learn. Although no system is perfect, if the motivation to continually improve our national disaster response is a driving force, we must study all storms, especially those with successful outcomes, and determine how we can apply these lessons to our own public health and disaster preparedness programs," he added. —Joel Locsin/JDS, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Kabupaten Tasikmalaya, Jawa Barat merupakan wilayah rawan bencana yang menempati urutan kedua seluruh Indonesia. Hampir sebagian besar kecamatan di wilayah ini berpotensi mengalami bencana alam mulai dari longsor, banjir hingga tsunami.

Menurut Kepala Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah Kabupaten Tasikmalaya, Kundang Sodikin, bencana alam diperkirakan terus berlangsung hingga Maret 2015. Status siaga bencana ini mengingat musim hujan diperkirakan akan berakhir pada bulan Maret mendatang.

"Menurut BMKG (Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi dan Geofisika), akhir (musim) hujan antara Januari hingga akhir Maret," kata Kepala Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) Kabupaten Tasikmalaya, Kundang Sodikin, saat ditemui di kantornya, Selasa 3 Februari 2015.

Menurut Kundang, wilayah Kabupaten Tasikmalaya masih menempati urutan kedua se-Indonesia dalam hal bencana alam. Mulai tanggal 1-27 Januari 2015 saja, jumlah bencana di wilayah ini ada 24 kejadian dengan total kerugian mencapai Rp 1,1 miliar. "Jika dirata-ratakan, hampir tiap hari ada bencana," ujarnya.

Kundang melanjutkan, dari 39 kecamatan di Kabupaten Tasikmalaya, hampir semua kecamatan merupakan daerah rawan bencana. Bencana yang mengancam daerah di antaranya tanah longsor, letusan gunung berapi, tsunami, dan lainnya. "Semua daerah memang rawan, tapi ada klasifikasinya yakni daerah tertinggi bencana, daerah tinggi bencana dan daerah sedang," kata dia.

Daerah yang paling rawan bencana beada di 17 kecamatan, di anataranya Bojonggambir, Bojongasih, Culamega, Cigalontang, Salawu, Pancatengah, Cibalong, Parungponteng. Jenis bencana di kecamatan tersebut yakni tanah longsor. "Wilayahnya berbukit-bukit sehingga rawan bencana longsor," ujarnya.

Adapun kecamatan yang rawan banjir adalah Sukaresik, Pancatengah dan Cikalong. Banjir di kecamatan tersebut disebabkan oleh luapan sungai.

Daerah yang berpotensi terkena dampak tsunami, berada di Kecamatan Cipatujah, Cikalong, dan Karangnunggal. Daerah-daerah tersebut terletak di pesisir pantai selatan Tasikmalaya. "Daerah yang rawan terkena dampak bencana gunung api yakni Cisayong, Sukaratu, Sariwangi, Cigalontang, Padakembang. Daerah tersebut berbatasan langsung dengan Gunung Galunggung," kata dia.

Sementara itu, jalur rel kereta api tidak luput dari ancaman bencana longsor. Bulan April tahun lalu, tanah longsor terjadi di Kecamatan Kadipaten. Akibatnya, Kereta Api Malabar jurusan Bandung-Malang anjlok lalu masuk jurang. Tiga orang tewas dalam kejadian itu.

Berdasarkan data BPBD Kabupaten Tasikmalaya, jalur kereta rawan longsor berada di Kecamatan Kadipaten dan Ciawi. Saat melintas di daerah ini, kereta harus meliuk-liuk melintasi perbukitan. "Banyak lekukan," kata Kundang.

Menurut Kundang, jalur kereta rawan longsor di Kecamatan Kadipaten berada di Desa Dirgahayu, Desa Cibahayu, Desa Kadipaten dan Desa Mekarsari. Sedangkan di Kecamatan Ciawi hanya satu desa, yakni Desa Pasirhuni.

sumber: TEMPO.CO