Lessons Learnt from The 2018 Sunda Strait Tsunami in Indonesia

Recently Indonesia was hit by Tsunami twice, these were in Palu of Central Sulawesi in 28 of September 2018 and along the coastline of Sunda Strait, both Banten and Lampung Provinces in 22 December 2018. The earthquake was relatively small but accompanied by a quite sizeable tsunami in several locations. It may be said that the destruction of buildings was due to tsunami only not the earthquake. Hence it is possible to determine more accurately the impact of tsunami force and its interaction with buildings and vegetations. A study was conducted along the coastline of Banten from 28 of December to 30 of December 2018 approximately one week after the tsunami occurrence. It was hoped that the remains of the buildings, vegetations, debris and sediment have not been altered by the people so that the characteristics of tsunami and its impact can be determined more accurately based on the remains. Such study may be useful for mitigation purposes. It was found that the tsunami height varied significantly along the coastline. Poor quality buildings and buildings that were not prepared to withstand tsunami were easily destroyed by tsunami force. A group of bamboo trees was found to be strong against tsunami, but the entire group of bamboo trees may be dragged by tsunami if the soil was not strong such as that at the river bank. Finally, some suggestion was proposed for the improvement of tsunami mitigation.

Keywords: tsunami, Indonesia, Sunda Strait, impact