Reshaping Banda Aceh: Planning a better city in coping with future hazard of tsunami

In 26 December 2006, a magnitude 8.9R earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean at South of Sumatra island of Indonesia. The intense earthquake lasted for several minutes, triggering a tsunami that swept most of the coastline of the Aceh province in Indonesia, as well as other countries such as India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. It’s believed to be one of the most devastating natural disasters in mankind history ever recorded within this century. According to Ghobarah (2006), more than a quarter million people died and nearly 1.5 million people were pushed away from home and livelihood. No other natural disaster has been more devastating than tsunami 2004. It stunned world communities and an immediate response was launched to assist the affected region. At the aftermath of the tsunami 2004, Aceh province suffered the worst hit of the disaster and civil war that afflicted the province aggravated the impact. Banda Aceh as the capital city lost nearly two thirds of it built area due to heavy inundation. JICA (2005) reported that more than 70.000 people died in this city alone while thousands of others were displaced from their homes. The Local government with the help of international aid organization reacted quickly to response the disaster. The city soon recovered from the disaster and many of the inhabitants returned to their homes to start their livelihood activity. The city has grown once again and this time it gained a lot of support from international donors. A large amount of capital has been granted to rebuild the city with the expectation that the city will be much better than before. Such opportunity creates a rapid growth of the city and more people are coming to the city for a better life. Central Statistic Bureau (BPS, 2008) reported that from the population of 177.881 in 2005, the number of inhabitants has grown to 219.659 in 2007. However, for such a huge disaster like the tsunami 2004, the city might well again hit by future tsunami as it lies on high seabed’s earthquake prone area, while the current state of the city showed that a proper step towards tsunami prevention effort has not been fully implemented in sectors of city development. This fact leads to the increase of city’s vulnerability rate against tsunami. With the rapid growth of the city, the impact of future tsunami can be highly devastated. Such threat to the city required serious attention from the local government. Although tsunami countermeasures effort can be very expensive, especially for small city of Banda Aceh, the city still has to take tsunami precaution as one of the baseline of the future development. Smart combination between tsunami countermeasures efforts and urban regeneration projects might lead to more affordable approach while at the same time also improve the living quality of the city inhabitants. Therefore it’s very challenging for the urbanist to plan a better city that has strong resilience toward tsunami and at the same time upgrade the living quality of the city in the affordable manner.Urban Climate StudioUrbanismArchitectur