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Designing and Constructing a Tsunami Evacuation Park
in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia
Background
Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, a city of some 900,000 people, half of whom live close to the
coast and within a five-meter elevation above sea level, has one of the highest tsunami risks in the
world due to its close offshore thrust-fault seismic hazard, flat terrain and dense population.
Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, Indonesia, a city of 900,000 souls
There is a high probability that a tsunami will strike the shores of Padang, flooding half of the
area of the city, anytime during the next 30 years. If that tsunami occurred today, several hundred
thousand people would die, as they could not reach safe ground in the ~30 minute interval
between the earthquake’s occurrence and the tsunami’s arrival. Padang’s vulnerability has been
amply demonstrated: after earthquakes in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2012, citizens, thinking that those
earthquakes might have triggered a tsunami, tried to evacuate inland in cars and motorbikes, and
created traffic jams that prevented them from reaching safe ground in 30 minutes.
Traffic Jam during Evacuation following 2007 (left) and 2009 (right) earthquakes
687 Bay Road • Menlo Park, CA 94025
Phone: 650-614-9050 • Fax: 650-614-9051 • E-mail: [email protected]
www.geohaz.org
What Can Be Done?
Since 2008, GeoHazards International (GHI) and Stanford University have studied a range of
options for improving this situation, including ways to accelerate evacuation to high ground with
pedestrian bridges and widened roads, and means of “vertical” evacuation in multi-story
buildings, mosques, pedestrian overpasses, and Tsunami Evacuation Parks (TEPs), which are
man-made hills, with recreation facilities on top and located within the city limits. TEPs proved
most practical and cost-effective for Padang, given the limited budget, local technology and
urgency to act.
A Tsunami Evacuation Park in Tohoku, Japan (left), and an artist’s conception of the proposed
Tsunami Evacuation Park in Padang, West Sumatra (right)
The TEP is accessible to the community at the time of the tsunami 24/7 on every day of the year,
and, in between tsunamis, it offers valuable recreational possibilities. By including valuable
public recreational facilities on top of the TEP, we assure that the community will maintain the
TEP and will know its location at the time of the tsunami. TEPs, being located close to homes and
schools, will reduce the disproportionally high lethality of women, children and the elderly
observed in past tsunamis.
GHI has acquired permission from the Indonesian Air Force to build a prototype TEP in the
northern part of Padang that would accommodate approximately 20,000 people. Dr. Fauzi Bahar,
the Mayor of Padang, agreed to landscape and maintain the TEP, after construction. Construction
will cost about $2 million, amounting to a cost-per-life-saved of ~US$100, far lower than the per
capita cost of the other options. The Honorable Mr. Irman Gusman (Chairman of Indonesia’s
Regional Representatives Council) and Mr. Alwi Shihab (the former Foreign Minister of
Indonesia and the President’s Envoy to the Middle East) have created the nonprofit foundation
“SPIN” (Yayasan Siaga Penyelamatan Inovatif) to collect funds for the construction of the
prototype TEP and its replicas. As of February 2015, SPIN had collected $500,000. Indonesia’s
national agency for disaster management, BNPB, has endorsed the SPIN-GHI initiative to build a
prototype TEP in Padang.
Next Steps
While SPIN continues to collect the remaining funds needed to construct the TEP, GHI and SPIN
together are overseeing the completion of the design and construction documents for the TEP.
Once those documents are ready, construction can commence.
About GeoHazards International and Dr. Brian E. Tucker
Founded in 1991, GHI has a mission—pursued in more than 20 countries—to reduce loss of life
and suffering caused by earthquakes and tsunamis in the world’s most vulnerable communities.
GHI is a California-headquartered non-profit organization with offices in Delhi, India, and
Thimphu, Bhutan, that emphasizes preparedness, mitigation and prevention. This approach can
save lives, reduce preventable losses and help communities to develop, unimpeded by setbacks
from natural disasters.
Brian Tucker received a B.A. in Physics from Pomona College, a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego and a Masters
in Public Policy from Harvard University. He headed the Geologic Hazards Programs of the
California Geological Survey from 1982 to1991. In 1991, he founded GeoHazards International,
a nonprofit organization working to reduce the risk of natural hazards in the world’s most
vulnerable communities through preparedness, mitigation and advocacy. In 2000, he was
honored for his service to the people of Nepal by the King of Nepal, and, in 2002, was named a
MacArthur Fellow. In 2007, he received the U.S. Civilian Research and Development
Foundation’s George Brown Award for International Science and Technology Cooperation and
was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. In 2009, he was named one of UC
San Diego’s 100 Influential Alumni.