"Perhaps this week or next week," the president said adding he hoped that the people would rise again to rebuild their houses and revive their economic activities.
The president said the impact of the quakes is handled nationally involving the regional administration and the central government.
"Indeed we are doing it by phases, especially in the reconstruction of houses totally damaged and repairs of houses with moderate and minor damage," he said, adding the process will take time.
He said he has signed a Presidential Instruction (Inpres) on the procedure to cope with the impact of the Lombok quakes.
The Inpres would provide a legal basis for ministries and related agencies in carrying out job in the field, he said.
A succession of big quakes with magnitude of 6.4 up to 7 on the Richter Scale hit Lombok in less than a month killing around 550 people leveling to the ground thousands of houses.
The first hit on July 29 with a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale, followed by one on Aug. 5 with a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale and the latest ones on Aug 18 with magnitude of 6.5 in mid day and another at night 6.9 on the Richter scale.
The government said it would take six months to one year to bring normal condition to Lombok.
When asked about forest and bush fires in an number of regions of the country, Jokowi said there was much less damage caused by forest fires.
The damage caused by forest and bush fires has been reduced by more than 85 percent from previous years, he said.
"I don`t want to comment on single case of fire, but the damage caused by forest fires has been at least 85 percent less than in previous years," he said.
He said law enforcement, field control, and the presidential regulation on forest and plantation forest have been quite strict in preventing forest fires.
"The forming of Peat Restoration Agency has also worked effectively and seriously to prevent more forest and plantation fires," he said.
On Wednesday non-governmental organization on environmental advocacy Walhi has urged the government to tighten control over peat land restoration process to prevent forest fires.
Campaign chief of Walhi Khalisah Khalid said the Environment and Forestry Ministry gave no information about the progress in the restoration process.
The biggest challenge in the effort to cope with forest and peat land fires is the powerful corporate actors, which have so far been behind the forest fire problem, Khalisah said here.
The law enforcement commitment issued by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in 2015 and early 2016, had been weakened in the name of something irreversible giving corporations excuse to continue non compliance with the law, he said.
Law enforcement is more in the form of administrative sanction that gave no deterrent effect on non compliance with the law by big corporations, he said.
Reported by Agus Salim
Edited by Albert Saragih
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Otniel Tamindael
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
