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Indonesia
AsiaSoutheast Asia

In nature’s cross hairs: How Indonesia's disaster response teams struggle to go it alone

  • Search and rescue teams are a source of national pride, and part of the country’s ambitions to respond to its many crises without foreign support

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Rescuers carry the body of an earthquake victim from a damaged hotel building in Sulawesi. Photo: EPA
The Washington Post
Retno Budiharto is on intimate terms with the dead. Since June, the veteran of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue service has encountered bodies in buildings destroyed by earthquakes and among the sodden wreckage after a tsunami.

And when his boat slipped through a muddy brown oil slick strewn with floating aircraft debris in late October, he knew he would again be looking for bodies rather than survivors.

The past months in Indonesia – virtually a nonstop string of disasters – have been a huge test for Retno and others in Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency. It has also put a spotlight on the country’s ambitions of responding to its many crises without ceding control to foreign nations and international organisations.
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A heavy machine removes a car during a search for earthquake victims in October. Photo: AP
A heavy machine removes a car during a search for earthquake victims in October. Photo: AP

At times, Indonesia’s rescue agency has struggled to keep pace with natural catastrophes across a nation in nature’s crosshairs. Its more than 15,000 islands shadow part of the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire” – an area of intense tectonic activity prone to earthquakes and volcanoes.

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Yet the stress, difficult logistics and relentless demands also have made Indonesia’s rescuers into something of folk heroes in their trademark orange jumpsuits.

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