We are living in a Ring of Fire.

In December 26^th 2004, an 9.3 Richter-scale earthquake in Aceh and North Sumatera caused the tsunami waves in Indian Ocean, killed more than 120.000 peoples, 100.000 peoples in injuries, 517.000 peoples lost their houses, 50% of the buildings were damaged. Recently, the 2007 Bengkulu, Sumatera, an 8.4 Richter-scale earthquake also caused dozens of death and million rupiah losses. These disasters show the damage earthquakes can inflict. Although future losses are uncertain, I believe that cities located in high-risk earthquake areas should be relocated despite opposition based on economic and historical reason.

Firstly, there are many type of losses earthquake cause. These types are physical, economical and social type of losses. The first type is physical losses that earthquake cause such as deaths, injuries, and damage to buildings and other structures. Damage here means the direct physical effects of the earthquakes. The second type is economical losses consist of direct financial cost and indirect financial cost. The direct financial cost is the cost needed to rebuild the amount of losses, such as the cost needed to rebuild the damage building and other structures, and the cost needed to build the temporary shelter for the victims. While, the indirect financial cost means those cost needed resulting from business interruptions. As all we know, when the buildings are damaged, the roads are blocked, and the water pipes are broken, the business activities in the areas are all suddenly stopped. The chain of distributions is stuck. The supplier cannot deliver their goods because the roads are blocked. The supply of rice is vanished, because the warehouse that used to keep the rice is flooded by the broken water pipes. The third type is social losses that are the direct social effects to the victims, such as the low-income housing, increased housing rents, increased homelessness, the huge costs of repairing needed by the communities, and the trauma of the victims. They feel trauma, fear, because of the physical and economical losses. These social losses need long period of time to cure and to relieve their social and psychological condition.

Secondly, the earth’s crust is always moving, so we can’t predict the exact time when will the earthquake occur. Our Earth is continually changing and consists of many spheres; one of them is called lithosphere. The Earth’s lithosphere is a patchwork of plates in slow but constant motion caused by the release to space the heat in the Earth’s mantle and core. The heat causes the rock in the Earth to flow on geological timescales, so that the plates move slowly but surely. The movement of the plates will generate the seismic waves. These waves cause the ground shaking, liquefaction, ground rupture, surface faulting, landslides and damaging water waves. Seismic waves can be measured by a device called seismograph. Even nowadays, with the vast growing technologies, there are many fascinating seismograph technologies to predict the earthquakes, but still, we can’t predict precisely when the earthquake will happen.

In conclusion, all of those losses lead to the big amount of money needed by government to recover the condition, even though the government must already have reserved fund for natural disaster, but this fund may be purposed wisely for another things such as the development of infrastructure. Although earthquakes are uncontrollable, the losses they cause can be reduced by many ways. One of them is to relocate the cities that located in high-risk earthquake areas.