Lombok earthquake, one year later: housing sector recovery

Abstract

The series of strong earthquakes that hit the province of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) on 29 July 2018 (M6.4), 5 August 2018 (M7.0), 9 August 2018 (M6.2) and 19 August 2018 (M6.5 and M6.9) has caused many casualties, injuries as well as damages in the housing sector. The disaster emergency was stated on July 29th, 2018 and was extended several times up to August 25th, 2018. A transition period from an emergency situation to recovery was declared starting from August 26th, 2018 to February 26th, 2019, while the rehabilitation and reconstruction (R & R) phase was started from February 27th. , 2019. In the R & R program, the Government has established a policy of building earthquake-resistant houses with a self-managed system through the formation of community groups (POKMAS) consisting of house owners, supported by technical and administrative facilitators. There are many models of earthquake resistant houses, both those proposed by the government and the private sector that are approved by the government. A Presidential Instruction (Inpres) Number 5 Year 2018 was issued on 23 August 2018 to provide guidance on the housing sector reconstruction. An investigation to study and document the lessons learnt from the housing reconstruction process is conducted in Lombok Island, covering the issues of program management, institutional set up and coordination, project administration, technical design, quality assurance and community participation. It was found that there were so many house building models proposed to the community by various sponsors, which cause confusion to the affected community. The study also found that the house reconstruction program has been delayed during the process, as one year after the earthquake, there were only about 52 thousands houses which have been completed, and 80 thousands other are still in progress, compared to the total of more than 237 thousand affected houses to be repaired and rebuilt. The study is expected to reveal various impeding issues and propose solutions for expediting the process. It is also expected that the result of the study can be used as a reference for future post-disaster housing sector recovery program in other places.