Indonesia starts recovering from Natural Disasters

Indonesia has recently suffered a series of devastating natural disasters such as the 7.7 magnitude underwater earthquake, the 10 feet high tsunami wave created by the earthquake, and the volcanic eruption of Mount Merapi located on Java. The worst-hit part of Indonesia was the earthquake in the Mentawai Islands. Aubrey Belford of the New York Times goes on to describe the statistics:

Ade Edward, the emergency head of the Disaster Management Agency in West Sumatra Province, said the tsunami had killed at least 272 people and left 412 missing. About 16,000 people were displaced, officials said.

Not only were the Indonesian islands hit by a high-magnitude earthquake, but also with the eruption of their volcano as well. The biggest problem in helping victims of this crisis is that the weather has been horrible and that the waves of the sea has been unrelenting. This situation has become the worst of both worlds. Indonesia was hit by destructive natural disasters and now environmental conditions have been altered to the worst by these natural disasters to slow down the help. One of the reasons for the higher death rate was because Mbah Maridjan, a trusted elder of the village, convinced the people that there was no reason to leave Java. It is because of backward villages such as this one which was influenced by only one man that causulties are increased.