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🇮🇩 Indonesia /Disasters & Emergencies

Academic urges disaster recovery to go beyond rebuilding homes and roads

From CNN Indonesia · () Indonesian

Translated from Indonesian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • University of North Sumatra academic Wahyu Ario Pratomo said disaster recovery should measure whether residents can resume normal lives, not only count rebuilt homes and repaired roads.
  • He cited Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s inspection of recovery sites in North Sumatra and support for faster permanent housing and restored livelihoods.
  • Gibran urged central and local governments to coordinate on basic needs, public services, housing and economic activity during the transition.

Post-disaster recovery cannot be judged simply by counting completed homes or repaired roads, University of North Sumatra academic Wahyu Ario Pratomo said.

The government must also determine whether affected communities can genuinely return to normal life, he said. Pratomo pointed to Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s visit on Friday to recovery sites in Central Tapanuli, Sibolga and South Tapanuli in North Sumatra as an important basis for that assessment.

The measure of recovery success must not stop at how many houses have been completed or how many kilometers of roads have been repaired.

· Wahyu Ario PratomoThe University of North Sumatra academic said recovery should be assessed by whether residents can resume normal lives.

Recovery work has begun in several areas. In Aek Parombunan, some permanent homes have been handed over to residents while construction continues on other units. In South Tapanuli, the government is pushing to speed up the construction of permanent housing for people still living through the transition period.

If the houses are completed but residents lose their livelihoods, the recovery process is substantively not finished.

· Wahyu Ario PratomoHe argued that reconstruction must include essential services and sources of income.

Pratomo said Gibran was right to emphasize education, employment and economic activity alongside reconstruction. New housing, he said, must come with clean water, sanitation, electricity, schools, health facilities, transport, jobs and places for economic activity.

“If the houses are completed but residents lose their livelihoods, the recovery process is substantively not finished,” Pratomo said. Gibran has urged stronger cooperation between central and regional governments after floods and landslides in North Sumatra, telling local officials to inspect conditions directly and identify problems quickly. He also called on regional coordination forums to address residents’ needs during the transition and report unresolved issues to the central government without delay.

Regional officials are the spearhead of implementation in the field. Go directly into the field and check what is still lacking and the condition of the residents.

· Gibran Rakabuming RakaThe vice president urged local officials to oversee recovery directly.
About this summary

Originally published by CNN Indonesia in Indonesian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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