Reconditioning the resilience of Palu City within the natural disaster stories

Abstract

In September 2018, the city of Palu was devastated by three natural disasters: an earthquake, a tsunami, and liquefaction. The disaster impacted most of the city, including the destruction of the city’s coastal areas by the tsunami, and some places experienced ’moving land’ or liquefaction. Both disasters were triggered by an earthquake with a magnitude of ±7M, which caused numerous buildings to collapse and thousands of casualties. Nevertheless, this series of tragedies force the city to adapt and rebuild a new life. Using the qualitative approach, this research seeks to understand how Palu’s city life changes in terms of resilience, supported by the exploration of the city’s historical, natural, and urban morphology. This research was also done based on author’s own first-hand experience of natural disasters in Palu. The finding revealed that the city of Palu has a long history of natural disasters, yet the people still desire to continue living in Palu. The government created new urban spaces and embraced adaptive design by enacting the ratification of new regulations regarding urban development planning that place greater attention on disaster issues. Finally, natural disasters let people and cities learn more about how to safely cope with living in natural disaster-prone cities.