Mentawai Response Lessons Learned - A Spark of Hope to Rebuild Mentawai

There are so many things to be learned during responding Mentawai following the earthquake and tsunami. The destruction was massive and the challenge on responding it was enormous. The good thing in responding Mentawai is the agencies responded to West Sumatra Earthquake in 2009 was still in Padang or Padang Pariaman. The relationship between agencies and government which has been developed for months has also given contribution so that response to Mentawai was quite fast.

These lessons learned also capture the uniqueness of Mentawai response. The strong joint effort amongst agencies is one of the benchmarks of the response. This can be seen not only in the emergency phase but also in the government early recovery program.

During 3 months (October 25, 2010 – January 25, 2011) on responding Mentawai, seeing strong cooperation amongst agencies and also with the government is encouraging everyone. The rebuilding of Mentawai would be a long process due to the area’s years of under-development and difficult terrain. But this spirit of joint effort gives a spark of hope in rebuilding Mentawai.

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Arwin Soelaksono - Disaster Response and reConstruction

Photo credit: Madrina Mazhar