Press Releases

Situation Report: The Media and the Yogyakarta Earthquake

(June 13, 2006) The May 27 earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia took almost 6,000 lives, left more than 30 000 people injured and up to 600,000 homeless. The quake, in this heavily-populated region of central Java, destroyed more than 130,000 homes, and did major damage to nearly 140,000 more houses. Power outages and heavy rains are making disaster relief difficult.

Added to this dire situation is the impending eruption of Mount Merapi, a volcano perched just 30 kilometers from Yogyakarta city, which has been bellowing hot ash clouds and terrorizing local communities for the past weeks. As aftershocks continue to rumble throughout the area, the people of Yogyakarta are bracing themselves for a second catastrophe any day now. 

The national, regional, and local governments have faced criticism from local, national, and international media for their sluggish response and for not communicating with their constituents about when help is coming and how people can get it. Earthquake victims, desperate for information on food and shelter aid, have resorted to calling their local radio stations to find out where they can go for help.

As a channel for emergency communications, the local media is beginning to play a more central role as governments and the international aid community begin to realize that there is little point in distributing aid without also distributing information on how to access the aid, what to do with it, and when the emergency aid period will transition to something more forward-looking and encouraging. In Aceh and Northern Pakistan, Internews played a central role in linking local media outlets with the international aid community for these purposes, and it is playing this role, once again, in Yogyakarta.
Yogyakarta is a unique region of Indonesia in many ways, including its strong longstanding tradition of community radio.

There are 18 community radio stations in Yogyakarta City alone. These stations were mostly unharmed by the quake, but in the earthquake damage zones of Bantul, Klaten, and Gunung Kidul, there are another 19 stations. These are small stations run by volunteers in the community – Suara Pesisir Radio in Bantul has a volunteer staff of 30 - they serve as information lifelines for villages that are often in remote areas far from the nearest city, and people depend on their radio to know what is going on in their area. Most commercial radio stations and all TV and newspapers are Yogya City-based and focus their coverage on this large urban center.

Virtually all of the community radio stations in the quake regions were deeply affected by the disaster, and many are now off the air due to structural and equipment damage, or have diminished work forces due to staff injuries and displacement. Most stations are in blackout or brownout situations and cannot resume their regular broadcast schedules. In the earthquake zones of Bantul, Gunung Kidul and Klaten, community radio staff were injured in the quake, many station structures were too damaged to be functional, and many stations had their broadcast equipment destroyed in the quake or by the rains that flowed into damaged studios afterwards.

Internews sent an assessment team to visit local media and produce a strategy for assistance on May 30. The team talked to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the quake zones, and asked what information they needed and how best they could get it. Newspapers are all Yogya-based and are not being distributed as they were before the disaster. Televisions were destroyed in collapsed homes, but even those that survived are not useful in the power blackouts these zones are experiencing. Some people Internews talked with did have small battery radios, and the consensus was that radio is the key source of information for the people in this region.

Radio is traditionally a strong medium in this province, and now it has become essential. Many people said they need radio to fact-check the rumors that have circulated post-disaster; the rumored tsunami after the quake, and recurring reports of Merapi’s eruption are two examples. The IDPs drew attention to the lack of substantive disaster coverage experience in the media here; they told Internews just days after the quake that they are tired of seeing and hearing the dramatic stories about how the tragedy has ruined lives, and now want to see stories about how their society will recover, rebuild and move forward.

Internews continues to gather data on the affected community stations; some stations have suffered severe damage, and others, while undamaged, have been silenced because the power has not returned to their areas and they are not in a financial position to have back-up generators.

The Bantul Community Radios paint a grim picture of the type of damage sustained. Radio Suara Kota had its transmission room and broadcast studio destroyed in the quake, and with the building went almost all of their broadcast equipment: transmitter, mixing console, computer, and field equipment. Radio Suara Pesisir lost its editing and broadcast computer and field equipment, and is in need of a generator to deal with erratic power supplies.

Radio Menara Siar had its building collapse and antenna toppled, destroying most of its equipment, including its computer and mixing console. Radio Ankringan suffered structural damage and is off the air because of the power blackout in their area of Bantul.

The list is long, but Internews will identify 10 key CRs that need help getting back on the air and provide the equipment and rebuilding support they need. These stations will then be linked through mobile phone and Short Message System (SMS) technology to form an emergency response network. Internews will work closely with Jaringan Radio Komunitas, Community Radio Network (JRK) of Yogyakarta in selecting the stations most in need of assistance.

While Internews helps rebuild this vital media sector, the Masyarakat Pers & Penyiaran Indonesia (MPPI- Indonesian Press and Broadcast Society) will set up an emergency radio station to provide urgent aid and safety information to a population that has survived one tragedy but waits for the next tragedy, Merapi, to strike soon. Internews will support the building and operation of this station, and will facilitate the participation of the Community Radio sector in ensuring that reports from the disaster zones are broadcast back to the entire displaced population. By using a 500-watt transmitter and an AM frequency, this Emergency broadcaster will cover both the earthquake zone and the communities living on the slopes of Mount Merapi with one transmission.

The final piece of the emergency communications puzzle is the ability of the end user to receive the information. In the disaster-affected regions of Yogyakarta, so many homes were destroyed and very little could be salvaged. Power outages plague the region so television is not accessible, and newspapers are not penetrating the damage zones. Some people have recovered their battery-operated radios, but many, many radios must be distributed to ensure that villages can receive information that otherwise would be beyond their reach. Internews is appealing to donors and the public to support a battery- radio distribution campaign. Both the International Organization for Migration and CARE have offered to distribute any radios Internews collects with their relief supplies of tarpaulins, clothing, food, water, and medicines.

Another urgent need for the radio sector is generators and fuel to run their stations in areas where the power has yet to return. The donation of generators to these stations ensure they can inform their listeners during this crucial time, bit also ensures that they can weather any future outages without interruption of broadcast.

Radio was not the only medium hurt by the May 30 earthquake. The Alliance of Independent Journalists, Yogya Chapter, reported that 27 local journalists were either injured or lost their homes in the earthquake – many are print media and television journalists. The local TV broadcasters Yogya TV and RBTV suffered serious structural damage. RBTV was forced to relocate its Master Control from its own dedicated building that was badly damaged in the quake, but returned to air within 24 hours. Yogya TV is located in Bantul, the worst hit area. Some of their staff suffered injuries, and their building was so badly damaged that they currently broadcast from two mobile broadcast units parked behind their damaged station.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Wayne Sharpe, Internews Indonesia Country Director

Kathleen Reen, Internews Regional Director for South and SE Asia

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