Jakarta (ANTARA) - The installation of early warning systems for natural disasters is meaningless without proper information dissemination and community preparedness, head of the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati has said.
All early warnings of extreme weather and climate, high waves, tsunami, and volcanic eruptions are meaningless without the community's involvement and understanding of them, she added.
"It will be meaningless if the community is lacking of readiness and understanding towards early warning," she remarked at a press conference on the 2022 Disaster Preparedness Day (HKB), which was accessed online from Jakarta on Monday.
She said that there are a number of challenges to ensuring that early warning information is received by communities in disaster-affected areas.
First, early warnings issued by the BMKG, according to laws and presidential regulations, enter the information systems of agencies, such as the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI), National Police (Polri), and local governments.
"Local governments hand over the information to the community. So, even though the BMKG sends an early warning, if the system in the certain area does not work for various reasons, the early warning will be meaningless, and there will be victims of the natural disaster," she explained.
Therefore, information dissemination through local governments has become a challenge, especially if the system in the area does not work round the clock.
The second challenge relates to early warning infrastructure getting paralyzed due to the impact of a disaster.
Karnawati asked BNPB head Suharyanto to create a special system, such as a disaster satellite, to spread information in remote areas.
Another obstacle is if the information has been received by the community, but they do not understand the information, she added.
Therefore, the BMKG is cooperating with BNPB, the Geological Agency, and related parties with local governments at the Earthquake and Tsunami Field School and several field schools to increase public understanding of natural disasters.
"However, receiving and understanding the information does not guarantee that the community will take accurate action regarding a natural disaster. The most important thing is their action toward the early warning, for example, evacuation," Karnawati said.
She also emphasized that family is the most important pillar in disaster preparedness.
In Japan, families prepare for disasters, and a culture of disaster awareness has even been awakened, she said.
"So, we hope that this Disaster Preparedness Day is not only a ceremony, but a training in the structure of our society's life," she remarked.
The commemoration of the 2022 Disaster Preparedness Day, themed "Disaster Resilient Families, Pillars of the Nation Facing Disasters,” will take place at the foot of Mount Merapi in Yogyakarta and Balerante Village in Central Java on April 26.
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