House Seismic Vulnerability and Mitigation Strategies Case of Yogyakarta City

Abstract

The increasing vulnerability of urban areas in Indonesia to earthquake disaster is one of the daunting problems for sustainable development. This paper summarises an assessment of earthquake vulnerability of houses in Yogyakarta City as one of high earthquake hazard areas in Indonesia, reveals the principal reasons why the identified vulnerability happened, and highlights some mitigation strategies. The house data were collected just before the Yogyakarta earthquake May 27, 2006 through field survey on 402 houses. In addition, in depth interview with their owners or occupants and a focus group discussion with several experts were held to complement the earlier data collection. The overall houses were categorized into 5 types: mud bricks/MD, bricks (BR), reinforced bricks (RBR), reinforced concrete (RC), and others (OT). The results have revealed that 84.8% houses in Yogyakarta were non-engineered houses and very vulnerable to earthquake and most of them were BR and RBR. Such vulnerability has occurred because of (1) lack of knowledge by builder, (2) lack of awareness, and (3) the absence of political commitment. The prominent mitigation
strategies are (1) a wider political commitment of the government and legislature board, (2) a greater awareness of earthquake-related matters by all stakeholders to the building processes, and (3) the necessary knowledge and competencies by designers and builders to deliver earthquake-resistant construction end-products. These findings have opened the precious window that the seismic performance improvement of houses in major Indonesian cities is indispensable.