Bogor, W Java (ANTARA) - In Salak I Village in North Sumatra, Paima Banurea’s home tells a small story of a much larger disaster. A landslide tore away the back of the house and destroyed its kitchen.
Today, the house has been rebuilt with a Rp30 million recovery grant, worth about US$1,700, from Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said Muhammad Teguh Ariffaiz Nasution, an expert staff member of the task force.
“The landslide tore away the back of Paima Banurea’s house, including the kitchen,” Teguh told ANTARA.
The repaired home was among the sites visited by the Task Force for Accelerated Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (Satgas PRR) during an inspection in Pakpak Bharat District from October 16 to 19, 2026.
The team’s mission was to determine whether recovery programs were reaching residents. Banurea welcomed the assistance, Teguh said, because it had enabled the family to rebuild its home.
Landslides affected nearly all 52 villages in Pakpak Bharat, where officials recorded 145 landslide sites. All 13 of the task force’s recovery indicators for the district were rated green, Teguh said.
Government services and access to health facilities, schools, markets, electricity, clean water and the internet have returned to normal, he said.
The team began with a coordination meeting with the district head and local leaders before visiting villages to inspect homes, religious buildings, farmland and roads.
Such inspections matter in a country where disasters can erase years of progress in minutes.
Indonesia faces recurring earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Forest and land fires, often linked to human activity, pose another persistent threat in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The same obligation
Every president inherits the same obligation: prepare for the next emergency while helping communities recover from the last one.
That challenge confronted Indonesia’s sixth president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, barely two months after he took office, when a catastrophe shook the Indian Ocean region.
On December 26, 2004, a magnitude-9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that reached heights of 51 meters in parts of Aceh.
About 230,000 people were killed or went missing, and roughly 1.7 million were displaced, according to United Nations accounts of the disaster.
Yudhoyono’s government established the Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias (BRR) to coordinate rebuilding across devastated Aceh and the Nias Islands off North Sumatra.
Facing his own test
More than two decades later, President Prabowo Subianto faced his own test. Floods and landslides struck parts of West Sumatra, North Sumatra and Aceh from November 24 to 30, 2025.
Prabowo had been in office for just over a year. The disaster devastated villages, killed residents, and damaged roads, bridges, schools, places of worship, health centers, homes, and livelihoods.
BNPB had reported 1,204 deaths and 140 people missing, underscoring the scale of the destruction. The losses reflect a wider global problem: the enormous economic costs of disasters, which can extend far beyond immediate physical damage.
Prabowo’s administration established the Task Force for Accelerated Rehabilitation and Reconstruction to coordinate recovery in disaster-hit areas of Sumatra.
Recovery remains uneven across sectors. By October 2026, 5,729.33 hectares of fish ponds and aquaculture farms in the three provinces had resumed operations, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries reported.
Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said restoring the sector was crucial to protecting livelihoods and reviving economic activity in affected coastal communities.
“Our priority is to accelerate recovery so people can resume their businesses and economic activities,” Trenggono said in Jakarta on October 20, 2026.
Closer look at recovery
The task force’s visit to Pakpak Bharat offered a closer look at recovery, revealing the challenges that remain between rebuilding infrastructure and restoring everyday life.
Brig. Gen. Fadjar Tjahjono, the task force’s North Sumatra coordinator, led the team, whose members included officials from the ministries of public works and home affairs, the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), and BNPB.
The team’s visit began with a coordination meeting with the Pakpak Bharat district head and the regional leadership coordination forum before members headed into the field.
According to the team’s monitoring and evaluation report, the team inspected three houses of worship damaged by the disaster in Tanjung Mulia Village, Sitellu Tali Urang Jehe Subdistrict.
Rebuilding stronger places of worship
At Al Muhajirin Mosque in Lae Sereh Hamlet, rehabilitation work by the Ministry of Public Works is underway, with state-owned contractor Hutama Karya carrying out the project.
The mosque committee requested the replacement of the badly damaged roof frame and corrugated-metal roofing. The request was approved, with plans for a stronger structure.
Tjahjono told the contractor to ensure the work was completed properly and built to last, so residents would be pleased when the mosque was returned to them, and the building would serve the community for years to come.
Related news: Indonesia works to repair 413 disaster-hit religious sites in Aceh
He also requested a project-specific information board so the community could monitor progress.
At the nearby Al Mukminin prayer house in Buluh Didi Hamlet, which serves about 30 households, repair work is also underway.
Residents pooled their own money to replace the floor tiles, which the team viewed as evidence of the community’s participation in recovery alongside the government.
Al Mujahidin Mosque in Lae Ikan Hamlet lies in a high-risk landslide zone and will be relocated to a safer site. Funding for its reconstruction is already included in the recovery master plan, and the Ministry of Public Works is ready to begin construction.
The district administration is working with the land agency to secure the relocation site. Mosque caretakers said they hoped the mosque could be rebuilt soon, as it serves as a center of community religious life, including Quran study gatherings.
Listening to farmers
In Sibande Hamlet, Tanjung Meriah Village, the team met farmers who had received a four-wheel tractor, a two-wheel tractor, and two hand sprayers from the Ministry of Agriculture. Rice seedlings have been planted, and the fields have already yielded a harvest.
The farmers explained that the four-wheel tractor could not reach their paddy fields because the access path was too narrow. It was therefore being used on upland rice fields instead.
They requested smaller cultivators suited to their plots. The team recommended that the district government forward the request to the Ministry of Agriculture and coordinate it with the 117 units of farm machinery already planned for the district this year.
About 50 hectares of farmland were reported damaged. Six hectares were buried under mud, while another 44 hectares were less severely affected, mainly by damage to irrigation channels, according to the report.
Reconnecting roads
In Kecupak Village, Pergetteng-getteng Sengkut Subdistrict, the team inspected repairs to the Salak–Kuta Liang road, funded through additional transfers to regional governments (TKD).
With the road running alongside a steep slope and the rainy season approaching, the team called for slope protection, proper drainage, and safety barriers.
The team’s findings and recommendations will be submitted to the task force chief to guide follow-up by the district government and relevant ministries, according to the report.
From a rebuilt kitchen to mosques, fields, and roads, recovery is measured not only by what has been repaired, but by whether people can safely resume everyday life.
Related news: Indonesia restores 98 percent of disaster-hit worship sites in Sumatra
Editor: Bayu Prasetyo
Copyright © ANTARA 2026