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PALU, Indonesia – The sun was starting to plummet, giving the sky a bright orange hue. Then the ground shook.
He felt more powerful than those in recent memory.
In Palu, they thought they knew all the risks. Indonesians live along one of the most active fault lines in the world – and Palu, in particular, sits at the top of a slippery slab.
But a tsunami ran through the narrow bay and mudfloods buried villages and residents never worried until last week.
Indonesia has spent millions of dollars preparing for natural disasters since the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami.
But this time, everything that was supposed to work was not.
An alert system based on computer simulations did not assess the chances of a huge tsunami, estimating the waves much smaller. The tsunami detection buoys were not working or were in the wrong place.
Even the sensors that have worked have persuaded scientists to think that the worst was over, even as a third wave of deadly tsunami hit Palu.
The devastation in the central region of Sulawesi Island will add a new chapter to the understanding of how changes on the ocean floor can engender deadly water walls and transform soil. closes in muddy rivers that have buried hundreds of people.
Scientists say the successive disasters – which claimed the lives of nearly 1,600 people – are among the most complicated of all. It started on September 28th just after 6pm. with a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, where the earth moves side by side.
Normally, earthquakes on the sea floor trigger tsunami surveillance, such as the giant sea-water dome that crashed in the Indian Ocean region in 2004, making nearly 230,000 victims, including tens of thousands in Indonesia.
PULA, INDONESIA – OCTOBER 6: Children's posters missing from the earthquake and tsunami that hit Indonesia last week are stuck at the entrance of a government building in the city of Palu on October 6th. (Photo by Timothy McLaughlin for the Washington Post)
[[[[Survivors of Indonesia have trouble knowing what will be next step]
The September 28 strike, located about 48 miles from Palu, was not something experts usually predict to cause a powerful tsunami.
"It was not a simple event," said Adam Switzer, senior investigator at the Singapore-based Earth Observatory. "This earthquake was beyond the limits of the available" warning systems ".
The immediate analysis has also been compromised by problems with Indonesia's tsunami detection buoy network, which detects changes in the sea, even at depth. These work much more accurately than tide sensors, confirming the height of a wave before it appears.
Dozens of buoys in the Java Sea have been broken, damaged or stolen. Others that were operating were not in the right place and estimated the risk of tsunami inaccurately – predicting that the waves would probably be two to nine feet in the worst case.
Instead, the tsunami sent water up to 20 feet in some places.
With the buoys, "a satellite will immediately receive the information that the tsunami has been detected and we will know what areas will be hit and how high the waves will be," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the Indonesian news agency. disaster management.
"But, he added, the buoys have not worked fully since 2012.
Shortly after 18 hours, water from Palu Bay began to retreat, forming rings in the ocean. Miranti Malewa, 35, was driving along the coast towards the evening prayer. But when she pressed the pedal to accelerate, her car did not seem to move forward.
"I felt like we were a marble in a bowl," she recalls, "going back and forth".
On the other side of the road, she saw the floors of the Mercure hotel collapse.
"There was a little voice in my head that said," It may be a tsunami, "she said.
Although earthquakes are frequent in Palu, she did not remember the tsunami that followed. Then she saw a horse that had detached from a car "running like crazy." She touched the gas, moving away from the bay.
At 18:10, the first tsunami hit.
The next came in two and a half minutes, even bigger this time. The last wave rose above the waterfront, crashed into homes and kiosks, and resulted in hundreds of lives.
The cascading side effects have been devastating areas further inland, turning solid soil into unstable liquid mud. Houses and power poles seemed to drive people away while they were washed away by the manure, witnesses said. Entire neighborhoods have been erased.
It was finished. But, for Indonesian officials, the problems were just beginning.
A series of missteps – including logistical challenges that slowed down the initial emergency response and submerged local officials who have virtually disappeared – raised questions about Indonesia's readiness for the next inevitable catastrophe. caused by an earthquake.
Indonesia's budget for disaster monitoring has declined in recent years, from $ 131 million to $ 46 million. Rahmat Triyono, India's director of disasters for the Indonesian geophysical agency, said the cuts had left him with a "very limited" tsunami detection system, based on simulations rather than more precise buoys.
[Gallery: Devastation and desperation after the quake and tsunami]
Retno Budiharto, from the National Agency for Search and Rescue, was stunned by the challenges when teams arrived in Palu the day after the disaster. The buildings and hotels had collapsed "like a pancake", he said.
There was no fuel, electricity or running water. The teams attempted to free a woman from the rubble of a restaurant that had stuck her leg.
"We tried to open a space for him, but if we forced him, the whole floor could fall on us," he said. "Our equipment could not do the business."
Her leg was amputated to free her.
Days passed. Aid convoys struggle to make their way through the heavily damaged roads. A crack in the runway at Paul's airfield left her barely operational, struggling to manipulate planes to evacuate people and bring supplies.
The desperate inhabitants of Palu also found that they could not turn to their local leaders.
The mayor of Palu, Hidayat, has survived but is clearly missing from view since the disaster. Hidayat has a name like many Indonesians.
Also missing is vice-mayor Sigit Purnomo Syamsuddin, a rock star turned politician better known by his stage name Pasha, who remains active in his popular band despite his position.
Graffiti scribbled on a wall in Palu asked how the mayor could sleep at night while the city was starving. The Washington Post could not reach the mayor or deputy mayor for comments.
The mayor's office, on the other hand, was a reflection of a government in disarray.
On Saturday, more than a week after the disaster, a pile of trash brooded in a large lawn, sending an acrid smoke plume to dozens of people camping in sun-scorched grass. The donated clothes were knocked down by torn plastic bags piled near the entrance of the office near a partially destroyed police truck.
"It should do more," said Indriani, 43, who was camping with hundreds of others in a park in front of the mayor's office, among the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the area. "Even if he does not help, at least he can come and meet his people."
Meanwhile, foreign aid agencies struggled to book flights and made their way to Palu.
But they said only local partners or aid groups in Indonesia would be allowed to visit the disaster area. The same rules were put in place after the August earthquake in Lombok, near Bali's seaside island., which killed more than 460 people.
"It is very clear that they want the Indonesians to lead the response and the others to follow and help," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, in an interview with The Washington Post.
She called for the United Nations and other international agencies to be given greater access to their activities in and around Palu.
"The disaster is huge," she said.
Byanyima said Friday that Oxfam had received clearance for the ministry to send three international staff to Palu, an increase over the one initially attributed to access.
The government, said Byanyima, said that food aid should be distributed through the Indonesian Red Cross. The ministry could not be reached for a comment on Saturday.
Part of the international aid effort has been transferred to Balikpapan, a port city located more than 200 km west of Palu. Supplies will take about 18 hours by boat across the Makassar Strait.
Officials say it will take months, if not years, to rebuild the region.
Meanwhile, all there is to do is wait.
"I'll be there for a while," said Merita Rore, 48, camping with other displaced people in a public park. "We are just trying to be safe."
Mahtaini reported from Hong Kong. Ainur Rohmah in Jakarta contributed to this report.
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