Sustaining Community Disaster Preparedness: Self-Evacuation Drill Against Volcanic Disaster

A self community-based evacuation drill program has been developed since year 2008 at four sub-villages surrounding Mt. Merapi area. During the 2010 eruption, two sub-villages at Glagaharjo Village, Sleman Regency, i.e. Kalitengah Lor and Kalitengah Kidul were totally destroyed by pyroclastic flow. However, the communities at these sub-villages were evacuated safely. It is essential to find out how this self-evacuation works during the eruption, and how to ensure the sustainability and applicability of this program. This paper presents a review and evaluation of self-evacuation drill activities in order to assess the lesson learned and provide recommendations for community disaster preparedness. Based on the analyses, there is a variety of participants understanding on the evacuation procedures, posters and evacuation maps used in the evacuation drills. In general, younger participants have better understanding than the older participants do. The development of disaster preparedness organization at village/sub-village level helps to enhance the disaster preparedness and public awareness that may reduce the casualties when disaster occurs. Moreover, the evacuation drills need to be carried out regularly to improve the community awareness on disaster risk management