Labuan Bajo, E Nusa Tenggara (ANTARA) - The Kupang Navy Air Base and the East Nusa Tenggara Regional Disaster Mitigation Office (BPBD) trained soldiers to face security threats and respond to natural disasters through an earthquake impact handling simulation.
"The simulation is aimed at training all officers involved to work together according to their respective main tasks in disaster mitigation, so that it will minimize victims of disaster," Kupang Navy Air Base Commander Lieutenant Colonel Nasrul Azharudin said here on Sunday.
Azharudin pointed out that one of the Indonesian Military (TNI) tasks in military operations other than war (MOOTW) based on Law No. 34 of 2004 is to help overcome the impacts of natural disasters, displacement, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.
Therefore, he said, TNI, together with other related stakeholders, must assist BPBD as an agency that leads in the emergency response .
He said Indonesia is an archipelagic country located at the confluence of four tectonic plates, namely the Eurasian plate, the Indo-Australian plate, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean plate, and is in the ring of fire zone.
With these conditions, Azharudin said, disaster risks can be mapped, but the exact time of disaster events cannot be ascertained.
According to him, the disaster mitigation training that was held on August 31 to September 1, was a follow up of the directive of the Navy Aviation Center to train soldiers' readiness to face security threats and mitigate the impact of natural disasters.
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"The important thing is that we understand the procedures in case an earthquake occurs; what to do and what the coordination flow is like. First aid is the key in victim rescuing efforts when there is a disaster," he said.
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The activity was joined by Kupang Navy Air Base, East Nusa Tenggara BPBD, Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), Disaster Alert Cadets (Tagana) of the Social Office, the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), and residents around the Kupang Navy Air Base.
