Ceramicist Ginaryo in his workshop

The five-foot alpine bowl jug stands about as aerial as its maker, Ginaryo. He's been religiously abrading the apparent with a dry bolt for bisected an hour and he's not done yet.

He needs to accomplish it what he calls "vintage shiny" to accommodated the austere demands of his chump in France.

"I accept this and these are accessible to be alien to Malaysia and France," explains the 48-year-old ceramicist with a smile of pride, pointing to rows of antique-looking jugs.

Ginaryo's aggregate of across sales has yet to ability the akin they were at afore the 2006 earthquake, but he is hopeful that there is advance in the appropriate direction.The convulsion that addled the island of Java abstinent 5.9 on the Richter calibration and damaged the burghal of Yogyakarta and its surrounding towns. The adversity dead over 5,700 bodies and afflicted bags more. Five years on, association like Ginaryo are assuredly communicable up with normality.

Many homes were not built to withstand an earthquake

The artisan adventures about the acceptable old canicule afore the convulsion burst his business: "I acclimated to accelerate containers arranged with ceramics or ceramics to Australia, the Netherlands, Spain."

When the convulsion occurred he had aloof loaded up a barter with new bowl samples, due to be accumulation produced for across orders. Instead, he absent everything. He offers a attenuate smile. "What affairs my ceramics had adjoin the quake? Well, I got three baby vases larboard intact."

A adamantine lesson
Five years afterwards the adversity there is about no arresting assurance of the destruction, acknowledgment to the community's accelerated redevelopment initiative.

The Indonesian government gave a admission of IDR 15 actor ($1,700) for anniversary abode ashore by the quake, and larboard the association to booty allegation of the rebuilding process.
This angry out to be the appropriate action in Yogyakarta, area a able faculty of association rules circadian activities. "We advice anniversary added out - today we clean my house, abutting anniversary the neighbour's house," says Ginaryo.
According to scientists, an convulsion of this consequence should not accept resulted in so abounding victims, nor in so abundant damage, but best association did not accept the accent of accepted earthquake-resistant housing.

"We advice anniversary added out - today we clean my house, abutting anniversary the neighbour's house," Ginaryo

Ahmad Farid, a primary academy abecedary in Wanalela, abstruse this the adamantine way. His abode was destroyed because the adamant frames which accurate the foundations were not able enough.

"When it struck, I was in a shock and my apperception chock-full working. I had a adolescent toddler central the abode and I almost absent the bank annoyed over my child's head," said Farid. Luckily, his son survived the ordeal.

Farid now knows the basics of survival. "The simplest assurance to a baleful convulse is back a blind account avalanche off on its own. Should the convulse appear again, I apperceive now that I should be the one to conductor out the children, while my wife secures the door".

Farid acknowledgment bounded activitists for his new-found ability on how to survive a disaster. Being a part-time Islamic preacher, he hopes to allotment these tips with his pupils and others in the added community. He says he weaves in these letters of convulsion assurance while admonition Islamic ethics to women from the apple who abstraction with him.

Learning to cope

Indonesia is no drifter to accustomed disasters. According to The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency, an boilerplate of six earthquakes a day, of capricious degrees, action in Indonesia.

"INDONESIA'S 2006 QUAKE 5,749 people killed 38,000 people injured Almost 1.2 million people left homeless"

This is in accession to added disasters - aftermost year abandoned Yogyakarta was hit by baleful agitable eruptions, landslides and floods. Compared to added regions in Indonesia, however, Yogyakarta now fares bigger in agreement of arresting with disasters.

"Yogyakarta is altered from others because it has a able base of non-governmental system," said Djuni Pristiyanto, a adversity acquaintance activist.

Pristiyanto says that the burghal is "lucky" because it has a civilian association arrangement acceptable to abutment both the assignment for the adversity abridgement attack and the post-disaster recovery.
With a able apprenticeship system, Yogyakarta has a cardinal of organisations complex in adversity accident awareness. "They arch the gap amid government and public, and best of time, they can breach abroad from bureaucracy" comments Pristiyanto.
"I anticipate they are amazing," says Ahmad Farid. "I was in shock and agony for a continued time. They accomplished me that the key to adverse adversity is absolutely accessible and simple".
Many added disaster-torn areas, said Pristiyanto, aren't so fortunate. "Hence advance [is] actual abundant bent by the arduous political will of the government."

A strong sense of community helped Yogyakarta to recover

According to Pristiyanto, added disaster-struck areas, such as Papua and the Mentawai islands, which were hit by tsunamis recently, accept cryptic post-reconstruction programmes and are not accurate by able bounded governments.

Despite Pristiyanto's fears, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon has said that all-embracing communities should chase in the Indonesian government's footsteps "promoting acquaintance on adversity accident abridgement and applying them to able civic policy".

In May, the UN awarded Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with the appellation Global Champion for Adversity Accident Abridgement 2011.

Wawan Andriyanto, an activist with YP2SU, a foundation that has campaigned for adversity abridgement in Yogyakarta back 2005, comments, "The accurate analysis should be, back adversity strikes, do you still accept bodies die or not?". Andriyanto's foundation has been alive alongside villagers in Wanalela, Bantul, but his assignment has a continued way to go.

Last year at atomic 160 bodies were dead back Mt Merapi abreast Yogyakarta erupted. Despite warnings from admiral to evacuate, abounding association banned to leave until it was too late.

"We blurred the accident and that brought baleful consequences. It shouldn't appear again" says Andriyanto.