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INDONESIA’s Coordinating Ministry for Infrastructure and Regional Development has intensified collaboration with the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) to strengthen extreme weather mitigation during the Christmas and New Year holiday period.
According to Coordinating Minister Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono said that the government has drawn important lessons on the link between weather and public safety from disaster response efforts in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra.
“Our current focus is to ensure smooth public mobility during the year-end holidays. To that end, we have identified several matters requiring anticipatory measures,” he noted.
Yudhoyono stressed that routine, unadaptive approaches to extreme weather are no longer sufficient given the rising frequency and intensity of hazardous events.
He added that President Prabowo Subianto has urged officials to pay closer attention to potential extreme weather nationwide, calling for adaptive, science-based infrastructure strategies that reflect Indonesia’s geographic and climate realities.
The minister also praised BMKG for advancing seismic base isolation technology to protect buildings against earthquakes, describing the innovation as vital for ensuring uninterrupted public services.
BMKG Head Teuku Faisal Fathani reported that several atmospheric phenomena are occurring simultaneously during the holiday period, including high rainfall, strong winds, and elevated sea waves.
These conditions, he explained, are being driven by the combined effects of the Asian monsoon, the Madden–Julian Oscillation, atmospheric waves, a weak La Niña, and the negative Indian Ocean Dipole. [antaranews]
