2009, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
The Ministry Marine Affairs and Fisheries (Indonesian acronym DKP) designed tsunami evacuation homes for coastal towns in Sumatra. Six of these houses were constructed in the city of Pariaman, which is about 1.5 hours northwest of Padang. Part of the EERI team accompanied Dr. Subandono, the Director of DKP, to visit these homes to see how they performed in the earthquake.
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| Figure 1. Typical tsunami evacuation home designed by Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. |
Pariaman has a very high tsunami risk and there are no roads leading to high ground, which is 4-5 km away. Therefore, DKP and the local government provided these homes for poor people who lost their homes during a flood in 2007. These homes are reinforced concrete frame with timber board infill. The main part of the home, which is located on the 2nd story, sits on concrete columns that are 2.5 meters high and have pile foundations that are 1.5 meters deep. These values were chosen based on past tsunami flow depths and scouring depths in Indonesia. The homes were built in 2007, cost about $3,500 each and cover about 27 m2. The houses come with two rooms and a common area. The first floor contains the bathroom and the rest of the outside area is commonly used as storage space or an area where family and friends gather.
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| Figure 2. Homeowner showing EERI team the interior of his home. |
The homes did not have any damage from the earthquake, except for some cracking at the bathroom on the first story in one of the homes. The homes are occupied by about five family members. The tsunami evacuation homes are located very close to the coast. DKP is trying to grow vegetation directly in front of the houses in order to dissipate some of the energy from the expected tsunami wave.
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| Figure 3. Cracks at ground floor bathroom from earthquake shaking. |
Residents evacuated to the second story of their homes right after the recent earthquake in case a tsunami would arrive. Although there is the possibility that the flow depth would be greater than their second story height (2.5 meters), this is their best option seeing how evacuating to high ground before the tsunami would strike is close to impossible. Raising the height of the second story would allow the structure to be adequate for higher tsunami waves, but would also increase the price. No cost-benefit analysis of this tradeoff has been done to-date.
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| Figure 4. Homeowners and Institute of Technology Bandung civil engineering student pose at gathering area on 1st floor. |
