On Friday, March 11, 2011, the island in Papua province was hit by the tail of gargantuan tsunami, triggered by a powerful earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale in Japan.
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad said here on Sunday that the KKP would soon help rehabilitation and reconstruction program at Enggros village in Mettu Daby island which was hit by the tsunami.
Fadel said his office would also allocate an amount of funds from 2011 budget to assist the recovery process at the tsunami-hit island in Papua.
The minister said that for the preliminary step, the KKP would send a team to the disaster area in Papua to conduct an inventory of the needs of the tsunami-affected communities and to find out the amount of funds to be allocated for the rehabilitation and reconstruction program.
Based on data collected by the local government in the field, the tsunami that hit Papua`s northern coastal areas had caused extensive damage at two locations namely Hotekamp coastal area and Enggros village.
At those two locations the tsunami had seriously damaged 15 houses, several traditional houses, a bridge, 24 units of fish trap, and left one person dead.
Therefore Fadel said the KKP would extend its assistance in fishermen settlement reconstruction and fishery facility and infrastructure reconstruction.
"The KKP is also mapping out other locations that have a big potential to be hit by tsunami, and expecting to cooperate with the local government to anticipate tidal wave disaster," Fadel said.
He added that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries was also actively making familiarization of earthquake and tsunami mitigation at the coastal areas of smaller islands across Indonesia.
The mitigation of disaster threatening the coastal areas and smaller islands in the country has been arranged in Law No.24/2007 and Law No.27/2007 on coastal areas and smaller islands management.(*)
O001/H-NG /F001
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
