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Tsunami mitigation measures for tsunami prone small islands: Lessons

learned from the 2010 tsunami around the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia

Article  in  Journal of Earthquake and Tsunami · May 2013

DOI: 10.1142/S1793431113500024

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Journal of Earthquake and Tsunami

Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013) 1350002 (14 pages)

c World Scientific Publishing Company
DOI: 10.1142/S1793431113500024

TSUNAMI MITIGATION MEASURES FOR TSUNAMI

PRONE SMALL ISLANDS: LESSONS LEARNED FROM
THE 2010 TSUNAMI AROUND THE
MENTAWAI ISLANDS OF INDONESIA

SYAMSIDIK
J. Earthquake and Tsunami 2013.07. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center (TDMRC )

Syiah Kuala University
Jl. Tgk Abdurrahman, Gampong Pie, Banda Aceh 23233, Indonesia
Civil Engineering Department
by 39.225.253.131 on 08/11/14. For personal use only.

Faculty of Engineering, Syiah Kuala University

Jl. Syeh Abdurrauf No. 7, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
syamsidik@tdmrc.org

DINAR CATUR ISTIYANTO

International Center for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM )
1-6, Minamihara, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305-8516, Japan

Received 5 June 2012

Accepted 15 October 2012
Published 30 April 2013

The challenge of protecting communities in tsunami-prone populated small islands is

difficult to meet. Likewise, the islands are often found with a lack of disaster mitiga-
tion infrastructure. A tsunami that occurred around the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia
on October 25, 2010, causing around 500 dead, is the inspiration for this paper. This
study was aimed at elaborating practices in protecting communities of small islands
from tsunamis by incorporating information about the estimated time of arrival of a
tsunami into the islands mitigation measures. A field survey to obtain the impacts of
the tsunami on the number of casualties and damages was conducted in February 2011
around the Mentawai Islands. In the survey, a set of questionnaires were distributed in
the Mentawai Islands to investigate the small island residents’ responses just after the
shock from the tsunami waves. This study was also followed by numerical simulations
to obtain tsunami wave Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) for the Mentawai islands.
Numerical simulations were conducted using Delft3D software coupled with Tsunami
toolkit. This research found that the ETAs for the Mentawai Islands range between
9–20 min. With the existing tsunami early warning system in Indonesia, the ETAs are
quite short. Comparing the Simulated ETAs to the findings from the Mentawai Islands
tsunami survey led to the recommendation that the best way to increase the community’s
preparedness for a tsunami would be by managing village-based spatial planning. Such
spatial planning may include relocating the residents far away from the coastal area. This
would enable the community to have more time to evacuate should a tsunami threat
occur.

Keywords: Delft3D; estimated time of arrival; evacuation; small island; spatial planning.

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

1. Introduction
A tsunami is a type of disaster characterized by a low frequency of occurrence,
but it causes massive damage and a staggering number of human casualties. These
characteristics contribute to a sometimes low awareness and a low preparedness level
of a coastal community for a potential tsunami. A similar phenomenon contributed
to the large number of human casualties due to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004
in Aceh. Although a tsunami of almost similar magnitude occurred in Aceh around
1907, this story did not pass to most of coastal communities in Aceh before 2004.
Despite this, some local wisdom of the Simeulue island community about tsunamis,
called Smong, is widely spread on the small island, and this saved them during
the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: the local indigenous knowledge taught the people
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of the Simeulue Island to evacuate immediately after confirming a sudden water

recession following an earthquake [Gaillard et al., 2008]. The challenge of saving lives
during a tsunami becomes more difficult to meet for small islands in Indonesia where
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the typical islands are situated in relative isolation from the national tsunami early
warning system. For the small islands close to a tsunamigenic source of earthquakes
(nearfield tsunami cases), the challenge of evacuating people becomes even more
serious. As the number of the small islands close to such tsunamigenic sources is
large in Indonesia, increasing the community’s preparedness is crucial. The time
needed to produce the first tsunami warning in Indonesia and the time needed to
deliver the warning to small island communities provides only a quite short time
for the community to escape. Furthermore, as the infrastructure for evacuation is
relatively minimal, this makes it more difficult to provide ample evacuation facilities
for a small island’s community. Therefore, knowing the time of the tsunami waves’
arrival will help the local disaster management authorities of the islands to create
the best method for evacuating their people or for providing measures to mitigate
the impact of the tsunami on the islands [McAdoo et al., 2009].
Around the Indo–Australian fault that has been actively producing tsunamis in
the recent centuries, there are many small islands located off the Sumatra Islands,
namely, Pulo Aceh, the Banyak Islands, the Mentawai Islands, and the Enggano
Islands. The most recent small islands impacted by a tsunami are the Mentawai
Islands. The Mentawai Islands were struck by a tsunami on October 25, 2010. The
tsunami was produced by 7.7 Mw of earthquake with the epicenter located at —
3.484◦E and 100.114◦N, and a focal depth of 20.6 km. This earthquake produced
tsunami waves as high as 9 m around the Islands [Koresawa, 2011]. The tsunami
waves produced by the earthquake were disproportionately large waves following a
long rupture duration of about 125 s [Newman et al., 2011]. The number of casu-
alties were 509 dead, 43 missing, 24 injured, and around 7,000 people displaced
[BNPB, 2011]. The tsunami also caused a transoceanic disaster as far away as La
Réunion Island, located about 5,000 km to the Southwest of the earthquake epicen-
ter. The tsunami took about 7 h and 20 min to travel from its source and to generate
about 1.72 m of tsunami wave around La Réunion Island [Sahal and Morin, 2012].

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

Comparing the human casualties to the total population of the Mentawai Islands
(76,173 people) leads to the question of what could have saved the rest of the com-
munity despite the difficult situation of the islands? What type of mitigation mea-
sures could have been taken by the island community for anticipating the tsunami?
This paper is aimed at investigating mitigation measures that have been performed
by the island community related to tsunami disaster and elaborating the lessons
learned from the October 25, 2010 tsunami around the Mentawai Islands. A field
survey was conducted around the impacted area and a set of questionnaires were dis-
tributed to selected respondents. Additionally, to estimate the time interval between
the earthquake and the first tsunami wave’s arrival at selected shores, numerical
simulations were conducted.
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2. The Study Area

Off the Sumatra Island of Indonesia, there are many lightly populated islands, e.g.
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Pulo Aceh Islands, Weh Island, the Banyak Islands, the Nias Islands, the Mentawai
Islands, and the Enggano Islands. Most of the islands have limited space. Only some
of them have any hilly terrain. This study was performed on the Mentawai Islands,
which have four major islands, namely the Siberut Island, the Sipora Island, the
North Pagai Island, and the South Pagai Island (see Fig. 1). All of these four islands
have hilly terrain, but most of the people live near the coastal area. The islands are
believed to have been created during the Oligocene or late Eocene era [Curray et al.,
1979; van der Werff, 1996]. The presence of the Mentawai Islands at the central
offshore of the Sumatra Island is likely the result of the large sediment volume
that moved southward from the Indo–Eurasian plate collision. A further process
of the collision resulted in an accreted wedge that formed a row of small islands
located off Sumatra, where the Mentawai Islands are part of a ridge [McCaffrey,
2009]. Within the small island groups in the Indian Ocean basin, the Mentawai
Islands are part of the Northeastern group, together with the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands [Poh, 2010]. These islands have been put under intensive scrutiny due to
their potential as a place for a giant powerful earthquake that is predicted to be
larger than 8.0 Mw. The earthquake may generate a tsunami wave as high as 15 m
at the densely populated city of Padang, the main city of West Sumatra Province
[McCloskey et al., 2007].
The district of the Mentawai Islands is one of districts in West Sumatra Province.
The Mentawai Islands District is the only district in this province that is located
far from the mainland of Sumatra Island. The Mentawai Islands District is divided
into ten sub-districts. The total population of the Mentawai Islands District, based
on 2010 statistical data, is 76,173 [BPS Mentawai, 2011]. The survey in this study
was focused on three sub-districts of the islands, namely, Sipora, North Pagai, and
South Pagai. These three sub-districts are believed to have been severely affected by
the 2010 tsunami. The Mentawai Islands District is considered rather isolated from
the major socio-culture conditions of the province. The number of its population

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

Table 1. Demographic composition based on educational background by sub-districts of the

study area.

No formal Elementary Secondary High Higher education

Name of education school school school school
sub-district Population (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Sipora 7,903 54.85 22.43 6.12 3.72 0.65
North Pagai 4,609 34.67 29.02 13.05 10.15 0.36
South Pagai 8,243 34.65 28.99 13.05 10.19 0.35

who graduated from a higher education institution is small. A background of formal

education background is related to a community’s capacity to anticipate disaster.
The ratio of the Mentawai Islands’ population who graduated from an institution of
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higher education is believed to influence the island community’s tsunami prepared-

ness. The demographic composition of the three sub-districts, based on educational
background, can be seen in Table 1.
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The island’s residents have limited possibilities to commute within or from the
islands to Padang city. The only transportation access to the islands is by sea,
either by ferry or by traditional boat. Although the islands are famous for their
surfing, public infrastructure and communication lines are apparently inadequate.
Transportation between villages (Dusun in the Mentawai’s local language) can be
made by a traditional long boat. Electricity is only available in certain villages, such
as Tua Pejat (the capital city of the District) and Sikakap (the biggest village in
North Pagai Island). Communication by phone is almost impossible for most of the
area of the islands. The access to national mainstream news media is only possible
at Tua Pejat and at Sikakap. This hinders the people of the islands from receiving
real-time information, such as a tsunami warning, from a national tsunami early
warning system.

3. Methods
This study has two parts: computing the tsunami Estimated Time of Arrivals
(ETAs) by means of numerical simulation, and investigating the response of the
island residents by means of a questionnaire survey and in-depth discussions with
key persons. The computation of the ETAs is aimed at predicting the first tsunami
wave arrival to selected observation points in the islands and correlating them to
the residents’ responses obtained from the questionnaire survey. The field survey is
also aimed at picturing the physical damage caused by the tsunami.

3.1. Simulation of the tsunami ETAs

A tsunami wave’s ETA is assumed to correlate with the time of evacuation and num-
ber of survivors or casualties at every impacted Dusun. Simulation of the tsunami
ETAs was done by Delft3D software made by Deltares [2007]. The Delft3D employs
a nonlinear shallow water equation and the Boussinesq assumption. Initially, the

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

Delft3D was initiated for simulating non-tsunami hydrodynamic cases. Taking

advantage of the Tsunami Toolkit developed in 2004, the Delft3D has been also
useful for simulation of the propagation of tsunami waves [Vatvani et al., 2012;
Apotsos et al., 2012; Gelfenbaum et al., 2011]. The tsunami toolkit was used to
generate a tsunami wave around the earthquake’s epicenter as the initial condition
for the simulation. The fault scenario in this toolkit adopts the Okada fault model
to transform the seafloor rupture into a surface wave around the epicenter [Okada,
1985]. In this simulation, the data of the fault scenario was obtained from USGS
information. The tsunami toolkit coupled with the Delft3D can usefully employ
the fault model produced by the USGS even though some previous research has
found that the fault model developed based on USGS information has produced
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overestimates for the 2010 Mentawai Islands tsunami [Hill et al., 2012]. Here, the
earthquake was estimated to create a strike of 325◦ and dip of 11.6◦ at −3.484◦E and
100.114◦N with a focal depth of about 20.6 km. Bathymetry data for the simulation
used 2-min resolution of ETOPOv2 bathymetry data coupled with hydrographical
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charts. A set of 30-m Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was used in this
simulation. However, since the simulations were aimed at producing ETAs, the res-
olution of the topography data did not contribute significantly to the results. A
Manning number of 0.02 was used uniformly in the simulation domain to represent
the sea bed friction.

3.2. Investigation of people’s responses

To obtain the people’s responses to the event of the tsunami, a field investigation
was done at three sub-districts, as depicted in Fig. 1. Interviews with community
leaders, selected respondents, and a questionnaire survey were carried out. The field
investigation was conducted between March 9, 2011 and March 16, 2011. The inves-
tigation also aimed at finding the measures used by the survivors during the event
and at observing community interventions prior to the event that could possibly
correlate with successful and unsuccessful tsunami mitigation for the small islands.
The questionnaire survey was conducted to find important aspects of the
response of the survivors to the tsunami threat. Several key questions, related to
their pre-event knowledge of the tsunami, were addressed to 65 respondents of the
selected sub-districts. Questions asked in the survey to the respondents as to their
reactions to the 7.7 Mw earthquake included such as their reasons for evacuating,
their activity just before and after the earthquake, the goods brought along while
evacuating, and estimated tsunami wave depths inundating the survivors’ bodies.
In-depth interviews to investigate the first response of official disaster management
authorities at the provincial, district, and dusun levels were carried out. The first
interview was done with Edward (male, age 40) as head of the logistic division at
the West Sumatra Disaster Management Agency. The second in-depth interview
was done with the Mentawai Islands District’s Government official, represented by
Pudjo (male, age 50). The third in-depth interview was conducted with the Head of

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

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Fig. 1. The Mentawai Islands. Epicenter of 7.7 Mw earthquake that occurred on October 25,
2010 is marked by a red star.

Dusun of Malakopa on the South Pagai Island, Sudirman (male, age 45). The three
levels of interviews were expected to represent the responses of the authorities and
their policies related to the 2010 tsunami. A set of questionnaires comprising 20
questions were distributed at six Dusuns, namely Dusun Malakopa, Bulasat, Surat

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

Aban, Tapak, located on the South Pagai Island, and Dusun Sabeugunggung, and
Dusun Montei Teikaku on the North Pagai Island. Observation on spatial interven-
tions that might correlate to tsunami mitigation prior to the tsunami event was
also done at the selected dusuns.
The educational capacity of the respondents in this survey is fairly similar to
the population of the Mentawai Islands. Educational background is believed to be
correlated closely with tsunami disaster perception in the community. A similar
urgency was also found in the case of the September 29, 2010 tsunami around
Niuatoputapu Island of Tonga. Clark et al. [2011] confirmed that the small, isolated
islands may have particular issues during response and recovery phases of tsunami
that are unlikely to be encountered in a larger region.
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4. Results and Discussion

4.1. The ETAs and the islands’ community responses
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Based on numerical simulations using Delft3D, the ETAs for selected locations
can be seen in Table 2. The table shows that the escape window time for the
island dwellers was quite limited. It was predicted that there was a time interval
between the occurrence of the earthquake and the first evacuation response of the
tsunami impacted area. During the interviews with respondent, it was found that
the fastest estimated response period of the survivors was about 2 min. As can be
seen in Table 2, the distances between the villages to shoreline are varied. The
closest distance of the villages to the shoreline is for Dusun Sabeugunggung. This
village was once proposed to be relocated to a farther place but this was refused
by its residents. On the other survey done at Usa city of Japan, it was found that
the first time response was between 5–15 min after the earthquake [Sugimoto et al.,
2003]. They also found that the average evacuation speed of the people was about
1.02 m/s if the people run while carrying an infant and about 1.07 m/s in the case
the people run without carrying anything. Considering that the 2010 Mentawai
tsunami occurred at 21.42 o’clock, local time, most of the people in the islands
were resting (either sleeping or no outdoor activity). Looking at this, there was
only a limited time for evacuation the location around the South Pagai Island, as

Table 2. ETAs at selected locations based on numerical simulation.

Name of Est. distance to Evacuation
Name of village sub-district ETA (min) shoreline (m) distance (m)
Surat Aban South Pagai 9 500 470
Bulasat South Pagai 10 600 500
Malakopa South Pagai 10 800 490
Tapak South Pagai 11 1,000 1,500
Sabeugunggung North Pagai 12 20 612
South Sipora Sipora 15 1,000 796
South Siberut Siberut 20 1,000 1,102

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

can also be seen in Table 2. Interestingly, the number of human casualties in the
South Pagai Island are fewer than that of the North Pagai Island. One of the worst
cases of human casualties due to the tsunami was found at Dusun Sabeugunggung
in the North Pagai Island. At this dusun, 117 people died.
The tsunami caused structural damage around dusuns located at the western
part of the North and South Pagai Islands. Damaged houses at Dusun Surat Aban
of the South Pagai Island can be seen in Fig. 2(a). At Dusun Sabeugunggung, the
village was flattened by the tsunami (see Fig. 2(b)). Most of the survivors from this
dusun mentioned that they were saved by hanging on the remaining trees around the
village and they could not reach higher ground due to landcover obstacles and the
lack of a designated escape road for the community of the dusun. The community
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houses were located between 10 to 50 m from the coast. On the other hand, in
the backyard of the village, dense vegetation surrounded the village and limited the
access of the dusun’s dwellers to higher ground located about 1 km from the village.
In contrast, at Dusun Surat Aban on the South Pagai Island, there were no human
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casualties although the village is the closest village to the earthquake’s epicenter.
In terms of ETA, Dusun Surat Aban also had a shorter time to evacuate than that
of Dusun Sabeugunggung.
The results of the questionnaire revealed that about 40% of the respondents
said that they had already learned about the threat of a tsunami and the pro-
cess involved in a tsunami. About 32% of the respondents did not know about
the tsunami before the 2010 tsunami. Based on interviews with selected respon-
dents who had pre-event knowledge of the tsunami process, it was found that the
contribution of community-based disaster risk reduction conducted by various par-
ties, such as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and related government

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. (a) Houses damaged by the tsunami at Dusun Surat Aban at South Pagai Island (b)
Village flattened by tsunami at Dusun Sabeugunggung at North Pagai Island.

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

agencies, helped them to understand the disaster. The efforts to increase the island
community’s preparedness for a tsunami disaster were increased significantly by
these parties especially after the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. The efforts of
these parties are interesting due to the lack of IT media in the islands. According
to the survey, about 51% the respondents revealed that they started to evacuate
immediately after the earthquake (see Fig. 3(a)). Although about 11% of them did
not know about the tsunami before the event, they were inspired by other peo-
ple to run immediately after the earthquake. This finding is similar to the case of
the Tohoku 2011 earthquake and its tsunami [Ouchi, 2011]. The remaining respon-
dents answered that they did not evacuate immediately since the mildness of the
shaking of the earthquake had misled them. The island community’s perception of
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the earthquake’s magnitude has been discussed by Yulianto et al. [2012]. This also
strengthens the findings that the pre-event knowledge of the island community is
good to some extent. Most of the respondents were also not affected directly by the
tsunami waves (see Fig. 3(b)). In the figure, a small portion of the respondents said
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that the height of the tsunami waves had drowned their bodies. The respondents
resided at Dusun Muntei Teikaku and Dusun Sabeugunggung of the North Pagai
Island. A significant percentage (about 68%) of the respondents felt that they ran
very fast during the evacuation (see Fig. 4(a)). Family connection played a signifi-
cant role during the evacuation process. It is shown in Fig. 4(b) that about 44.6%
of the evacuees carried their kids during the evacuation process. As the maternal
instinct is strong, taking along a kid with the evacuee is unavoidable. Hence, other
support methods to accelerate the evacuation process are vital, such as developing
evacuation roads, assigning clear escape locations, and constructing effective early
warning system for the community of the small islands.

4.2. The dissemination of the tsunami early warning

The Mentawai Islands tsunami occurring on October 25, 2010 gives another proof
of the urgency of an effective telecommunication and transportation system during

(a) (b)
Fig. 3. (a) Reasons for the survivors to evacuate during the tsunami event. (b) Estimated height
of the tsunami waves that inundated the survivors.

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. (a) Estimated evacuation speed by running of the survivors. (b) Thing(s) carried by the
survivors while evacuating.
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disaster, especially when dealing with remote islands such as the Mentawai Islands.
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The unavailability of this system was considered to be one of the roots of the late
emergency response in this disaster. The importance of integrated operation and
maintenance of a tsunami early warning system was also learned from this disas-
ter event. The tsunami responses by various of the related parties to release the
tsunami warning can be seen in Fig. 5. The figure gives several facts related to

Fig. 5. First response and early warning dissemination after the 7.7 Mw earthquake around the
Mentawai Islands between October 25–27, 2010.

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

the response situation at the initial stage of the Mentawai Islands tsunami. Based
on a rapid analysis done by the Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysical
Agency of Indonesia (BMKG), the agency concluded that the earthquake had the
potential to generate a tsunami that would effect the coastal area near the epi-
center. It was predicted that the tsunami would attack the South Pagai Island at
about 21:49:52 local time. Immediately, the BMKG released tsunami warning 5 min
after the earthquake through the electronic media as well as a direct message to
the local governments including the Mentawai Islands authority. However, as has
been elaborated previously, there was no effective electronic medium with which to
disseminate this information. The condition became worse when the only electric
power in the islands was down due to a lack of fuel. On further process, the tsunami
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warning was cancelled 47 min later since there was no feedback confirmation from
the Mentawai Islands local government about the actual situation from the islands,
and the tide-gauge measurement network said there was a small tsunami ampli-
tude (0.2–0.4 m). In fact, the Mentawai Islands regularly experienced a lack of fuel
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supply to support their daily activities.

The first information from the islands to Padang city was only received the next
morning, reported by a courier from the Mentawai Islands who had to face 6 h of a
tough motorboat journey due to bad sea condition. Immediately after receiving the
actual disaster information, emergency responses were started by the Provincial
Government of West Sumatra. However, severe sea condition (strong winds and
high waves) hampered this emergency response. These unfortunate conditions also
resulted in the return of several emergency ships dispatched back to Padang city.
A national level emergency coordination meeting was held on the evening of the
same day to make a decision on the mobilization of helicopters to support these
emergency measures. Nonetheless, the effective response of the disaster authorities
were started only the next morning.

4.3. The spatial planning intervention in the islands

Looking at the findings about the number of human casualties in one village and
another, the correlation between the ETAs and the victims is expected to draw on
other contributed parameters. One of the most probable parameters is interven-
tion of the village spatial planning prior to the 2010 tsunami. The spatial planning
intervention at the villages was done by relocating the coastal community farther
from the coastal area. This was intensively done beginning in 2007. Nevertheless,
the intervention was not made, or was challenged, in several villages such as Dusun
Sabeugunggung and Dusun Muntei Teikaku of the North Pagai Island. The popu-
lation of each village, the casualties due to the tsunami, and the relocation process
as part of the spatial intervention in the villages before the tsunami, are shown in
Table 3.
According to Sudirman, the head of Dusun Malakopa, since 2007, almost all
the houses near the coastal area had been moved to a higher location in the South

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Syamsidik & D. C. Istiyanto

Table 3. Spatial planning intervention and casualties at selected villages.

Name of Number of Spatial planning

Name of village sub-district Population deaths Injured intervention
Surat Aban South Pagai 436 0 0 Intervention
Bulasat South Pagai 2030 1 13 Intervention
Malakopa South Pagai 2121 0 1 Intervention
Tapak South Pagai 112 0 0 Intervention
Montei Teikaku North Pagai 260 113 90 No Intervention
Sabeugunggung North Pagai 212 117 62 No Intervention

Pagai Island. The remaining houses abandoned in the coastal area were destroyed
by the 2010 tsunami. None of the Dusun Malakopa’s residents died because of the
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tsunami. The National Disaster Management Agency of Indonesia (BNPB) released

the data of total deaths due to the tsunami: 509 lives; most of the victims were
located on the North Pagai Island [BNPB, 2011]. The statistics of deaths has drawn
attention due to the fact that the North Pagai Island is located farther from the
by 39.225.253.131 on 08/11/14. For personal use only.

earthquake epicenter than the South Pagai Island. At Dusun Surat Aban, Dusun
Tapak, and Dusun Malakopa, permanent public facilities such as churches, schools,
and village offices were relocated about three years before the tsunami. In contrast
to South Pagai Island, the relocation program was difficult or a failure on the
North Pagai Island. At Dusun Sabeugunggung, none of the dusun’s dwellers wanted
to move away from the coastal area. Among the reasons for this rejection were
transportation problems and access to fishery activity. The connection between one
dusun to another is difficult by land transportation. Therefore, if they had resided in
the inner part of the island, far from the coastal area, it would have added more time
for them to reach the boat. Although most of the Mentawai Island people rely for
their livelihood on more than one type of occupation, e.g. as farmers and fishermen,
being close to the coastal area would make it easier to perform their daily activities.
Based on this observation, it was found that the low casualties at several loca-
tions is to be attributed to spatial planning intervention at the villages prior to
the 2010 Mentawai Island tsunami. The village-based spatial planning intervention
seems to be effective as a mitigation measure for tsunami-prone small islands, such
as the Mentawai Islands. The low casualties at certain villages, e.g. Surat Aban
and Malakopa, were also supported by clear escape locations and roads assigned
by the villagers before the tsunami. In these villages, the community had agreed to
formulate their own evacuation procedures and escape locations. During the 2010
tsunami, people in these villages responded effectively by following the assigned
escape roads to higher ground areas. This did not obtain at Sabeugunggung and
Muntei Teikaku.

5. Conclusions
This study revealed that the ETAs of tsunami waves on the Mentawai Islands
are noticeably short, leaving only a limited window of time for the small island

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Tsunami Mitigation Measures for Tsunami Prone Small Islands

community to evacuate. This short evacuation period coupled with the complexity
of the landscape of the coastal villages has contributed to the number of casualties.
In some villages, where the relocation of the coastal community to the inner part of
the small islands made since 2007, the number of deaths was relatively low or none.
The low level of deaths in these villages is to be attributed to the spatial planning
intervention made before the 2010 tsunami. This study recommends that spatial
planning for the small islands should be made in order to mitigate tsunami losses
by considering the most probable tsunami wave travel time (ETA), the landscape
of the small islands, and the community culture. The integration of the national
tsunami early warning system by developing ample communication and transporta-
tion infrastructures in the tsunami-prone small islands is urgent in order to increase
J. Earthquake and Tsunami 2013.07. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

the island community’s preparedness for tsunami disasters.

Acknowledgments
by 39.225.253.131 on 08/11/14. For personal use only.

The Multi Donor Fund (MDF), through its implementing partner UNDP, has pro-
vided financial support for the survey conducted by the authors through Disaster
Risk Reduction for Aceh (DRR-A Project) output 3. Thanks also to Try Al Tanto
from the Ministry of Marine and Fishery of Indonesia and Reno Arief Rachman
from the Coastal Dynamic Studies Research Center of the Agency for the Assess-
ment and Application of Technology of Indonesia (BPDP-BPPT). This paper also
has also been assisted by Arizal and Suhada Arief of the Tsunami and Disaster Mit-
igation Research Center of Syiah Kuala University. The Sea Defense Consultant of
The Netherlands has provided Delft3D computational platform for this study.

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