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Indonesia is facing a long and painful recovery from the devastating earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago, but scientists say the latest calamity could simply be a warning for future deadly disasters and destructive.
Palu, in Indonesia's central Sulawesi province, was devastated on 28 September by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami that hit the coastal city with waves as high as 20 feet in height. Both disasters claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 people, according to the UN, and thousands were injured and missing. The survivors will suffer the consequences for years: some 74,000 people have lost their homes and will live in a camp similar to a refugee camp for the foreseeable future.
It's a year of natural disasters. Hurricane Florence caused record rainfall in the Carolinas, typhoon Mangkhut caused landslides and killed dozens of people in the Philippines, and forest fires ravaged California. Another earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok in July killed more than 500 people.
The devastating toll of such disasters could give a false idea of their frequency, experts told TIME. While climate change is increasing the severity of some natural disasters, such as hurricanes, typhoons and forest fires, the number of annual earthquake and tsunami events is relatively stable. According to data compiled by the US Geological Survey (USA), the number of severe earthquakes has remained unchanged since 1900.
Read more: New UN report warns of looming climate change crisis
But the damage caused by these earthquakes and the threat they pose to human life is increasing. Last year, a report from the Belgian-based Center for Disaster Epidemiology Research (CRED) documented a little less natural disasters in 2017 than the previous decade, but a 49% increase in losses caused by these events.
The reasons are clear: more and more people are moving into more densely populated cities and surrounding infrastructure – roads, bridges, and buildings – that pose a deadly danger to people. a disaster and an expensive repair when it disappears.
People, infrastructure and wealth are "concentrated in urban centers increasingly exposed in the most dangerous parts of the planet," said Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of Earth Sciences at University College London. "Disaster preparedness does not follow."
Earthquakes and tsunamis have been particularly deadly, killing nearly 750,000 people over the last 20 years, more than other extreme weather events, according to an upcoming report from the US Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. .
Much of this mortality occurred in 2004 after a magnitude 9.1 earthquake in the southern Indian Ocean caused a devastating tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in 12 countries, the majority in Indonesia.
In some cases, the factors that make coastal cities attractive also increase their danger. Many are built on the trail of tropical storms or along tectonic faults that reflect the coastline. Palu is no different: it lies at the end of a long bay, which protects its inhabitants from sea storms, notes McGuire. But this bay also helped to concentrate the destruction of the tsunami, raise the water level and guide it directly to the inhabitants of Palu.
Read more: Indonesian earthquake survivors worry for the future
Erosion along the Palu-Kora fault that formed the bay around Palu also facilitated liquefaction, a phenomenon in which the ground swirls like waves during an earthquake.
Liquefaction was a horror but that should not have been a surprise: a 2012 Indonesian government survey revealed that Palu's peripheral plots, like Petobo and Balaroa, were at high risk of liquefaction, reported Monday. Associated Press. Now these neighborhoods are gone and thousands of former residents are still missing.
The most affected areas of Palu will not be rebuilt, according to a spokesman for the government disaster relief agency, which could prevent a future tragedy. But rebuilding the rest of Palu to withstand future earthquakes will be expensive.
"There is no simple answer to this problem," wrote McGuire at TIME in an email. "The cities are just in the wrong place."
Read more: Indonesia: How liquefaction has made mudslides "wave-like"
There have been some improvements in recent years: our ability to recognize and prepare for earthquakes and tsunamis has increased, with seismic stations, tide gauges and seabed sensors measuring tremors and changes in depth of the ocean.
"Indonesia has improved its tsunami warning system and tsunami readiness significantly and continuously" since the 2004 tsunami, said Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC), Hawaii.
But early detection does not confer immunity: localized tsunamis like Palu "can strike in minutes," Kong added.
In Sulawesi, the government has been criticized for preemptively canceling tsunami warning sirens and SMS alerts. Only fifteen minutes separated the earthquake and tsunami, according to a timeline established by the New York Time. The power lines and cell towers were cut in minutes, making it difficult to know how long the alert could have stayed longer.
With the unpredictability of earthquakes and tsunamis, education and awareness can prove to be far more effective than high tech equipment, many experts told TIME.
"People need to know that if they live in a country shaken by an earthquake … [the] the earthquake is their natural warning, "writes geophysicist Jason Patton at TIME, adding that civilians should know that they must evacuate even in the event of a warning equipment failure. "A natural disaster only becomes a disaster if many people are injured."
