The Study on Life Recovery of Disaster Victims Who Become Disabled as a Consequence of Natural Disaster

—The Case Study of Central Java Earthquake, Indonesia—

Abstract

This study aims to clarify the situation of disaster victims who became disabled as a consequence of natural disaster and try to find critical factors for their life recovery. In case of natural disaster, especially the earthquake in developing countries, many victims who suffered from building collapse caused by tremor assumed to become disabled. The damages tend to concentrate on vulnerable people who live in vulnerable housing. On the other hand, it is still not clear their living conditions or what kind of assistance is required for their life recovery.

Life recovery is a subjective issue that differs from social values, living conditions, loss, etc. The long-termed grass rooted study conducted after the Kobe Earthquake, Japan, 1995 showed that life recovery were based not only on infrastructure or housing recovery, but depended more on human relation between their friends or neighborhood, which corresponded to social capital of the community.

In this study, through the case study of Central Java Earthquake, Indonesia, we clarify the situation surrounding disaster victims who became newly disabled. Then we discuss their life recovery focusing on human networks. Finally, based on the result of the study we propose requirement for the international cooperation to support their life recovery.