Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami (2018)
In September 2018, Indonesia experienced a series of devastating natural disasters, including a significant earthquake and tsunami that primarily affected the island of Sulawesi. The most catastrophic event occurred on September 28, when a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Palu, generating an 18-foot tsunami that caused widespread destruction and resulted in over four thousand fatalities and more than ten thousand injuries. This was preceded by a deadly series of earthquakes on Lombok in August, which claimed over five hundred lives. The geological instability of Indonesia, situated along the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire, makes it particularly vulnerable to such disasters, including the potential for tsunamis triggered by both earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Tragically, the nation faced further calamity on December 22, 2018, due to a tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption of Anak Krakatau, which resulted in additional loss of life and injuries. Recovery efforts have been complicated by the damage to infrastructure and the ongoing threat of future seismic events. The importance of effective tsunami detection systems has been underscored by these events, revealing gaps in the existing public safety measures. Rebuilding and humanitarian assistance efforts continue to address the needs of those affected, highlighting Indonesia’s resilience in the face of repeated natural disasters.
Subject Terms
Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami (2018)
Date: September 28, 2018
Place: Sulawesi, Indonesia
Summary
The Indonesian earthquake and tsunami of 2018 were natural disasters that hit Indonesia in September, leaving more than four thousand people dead and over ten thousand injured.
Key Events
- August 19, 2018—An earthquake hits the Indonesian island of Lombok, killing over five hundred people.
- September 28, 2018—An earthquake and tsunami hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, leaving more than four thousand dead and over ten thousand injured.
- December 22, 2018—A tsunami caused by an underwater volcanic eruption kills over four hundred and injures more than fourteen thousand.
Status
As of March 2019, rebuilding efforts are ongoing to repair the damage from all three natural disasters to hit the Indonesian islands in 2018. The region remains extremely geologically unstable, with future earthquakes and tsunamis expected.
In-Depth Overview
The country of Indonesia, home to some 260 million people, is a chain of thousands of islands set between the landmasses of Asia and Australia, and between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The entire Indonesian region is geologically and tectonically unstable, lying along the Pacific Ocean’s so-called Ring of Fire, where two huge tectonic plates, the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate, collide with the Eurasian Plate. The tremendous forces created by this tectonic collision fuel a string of volcanoes that underlie Indonesia and were, in part, responsible for the formation of the island chain. In addition to volcanoes, this tectonic activity is also a source of earthquakes. Both volcanoes and earthquakes can also trigger tsunamis, powerful and destructive ocean waves often (erroneously) called tidal waves.
One of the most devastating natural disasters of the twenty-first century came in 2004, when a massive undersea earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.1 hit off the coast of the major Indonesian island of Sumatra. It triggered a tsunami that spread across the Indian Ocean and impacted more than a dozen countries, some as far away as East Africa. It is estimated that more than 225,000 were killed in the disaster, more than half of them in Indonesia. Other major Indonesian earthquakes occurred in 2005 and 2006, the deadliest of which was a May 2006 quake near Yogyakarta, Java, that killed at least 5,500 and destroyed some 150,000 homes. Major quakes in 2009, 2010, and 2016 also claimed hundreds of lives in Sumatra and Java.
Beginning in the summer, 2018 became one of the deadliest years for Indonesia in terms of tectonic instability. The first major event happened in August 2018, when a series of earthquakes hit the island of Lombok, west of Java. Local authorities reported more than five hundred people killed in the event.
The deadliest event of 2018, however, occurred on September 28, when a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the major island of Sulawesi about fifty miles from Palu, capital of the province of Central Sulawesi. The quake generated an eighteen-foot tsunami that struck Palu, devastating the coastal city of some three hundred thousand people. By September 30, local authorities had already reported more than eight hundred killed in the event. The crisis worsened as emergency crews were unable to reach rural areas outside the city and because of the difficulty of sifting through the rubble of Palu searching for survivors. The AHA Centre (ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance), a regional humanitarian assistance organization, released a report on the earthquake and tsunami on October 15, 2018, estimating that there had been 2,100 fatalities, 78,994 persons displaced, 68,451 houses damaged or destroyed, 4,612 major injuries, and 680 still missing. Government estimates indicated that as many as 17,000 were left homeless in Palu, and by late October human rights investigators reported that the earthquake and tsunami had jointly left over 200,000 people as refugees within Indonesia.
According to a spokesperson for the nation’s disaster management agency, the disaster was especially severe in part because the nation’s tsunami warning system—made up of twenty-two offshore buoys—had been inactive for at least six years prior to the disaster due to insufficient funding for public safety. Geophysicists also noted that the size of the tsunami was unexpected given the type of earthquake that had occurred: one in which the earth movement was largely horizontal rather than vertical. The tsunami reportedly hit Palu as soon as thirty minutes after the quake.
As Indonesia was still struggling to recover from the September earthquake and tsunami, the nation suffered another disaster on December 22, 2018. A volcanic eruption in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java caused a tsunami that struck nearly two hundred miles of coastline with waves ranging in height from six to forty feet, killing more than four hundred people. The volcano that erupted was Anak Krakatau, or “Child of Krakatoa,” a smaller volcano that rose in the area where the volcano Krakatoa exploded in 1883 and sank into the ocean in one of the biggest eruptions in recorded history. After the December 2018 eruption, researchers later found that a 158-acre piece of Anak Krakatau had slid into the ocean, which along with related undersea landslides displaced massive amounts of water and caused the tsunami. Though systems were in place to warn of a tsunami related to an earthquake, Indonesia had no system in capable of detecting a tsunami related to volcanism. After the incident, President Joko Widodo ordered the nation’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geological Agency (BMKG) to purchase tsunami detectors capable of detecting tsunamis from multiple sources.
Key Figures
Dwikorita Karnawati: Chief of Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geological Agency (BMKG)
Joko Widodo: President of Indonesia.
Bibliography
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Beech, H., & Suhartono, M. (2018, September 30). Indonesia tsunami death toll climbs above 800. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/world/asia/indonesia-tsunami.html
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Situation update no. 12: M 7.4 earthquake & tsunami, Sulawesi, Indonesia. (2018, October 15). AHA Centre. Retrieved from https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/AHA-Situation‗Update-no12-Sulawesi-EQ-rev.pdf