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Tsunami awareness advocates working along the disaster-prone coast of West Sumatra have lashed out at presidential adviser Andi Arief for claiming that a magnitude 8.9 earthquake would hit the area.

Patra Rina Dewi, director of the Tsunami Alert Community (Kogami), told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday that the statement by Andi the previous day may have been well intentioned but had caused undue panic in the area.

“It was not wise or proper for someone like him to make such a statement because it just caused more worry for people,” she said.

“These are people who have to worry about what they’re going to eat tomorrow, and they panicked. Andi Arief should have had a solution for people like them. He should have thought carefully and had scientific data to support his statement, because as a presidential adviser, he needs to have solutions and actively take part in educating the people.”

In his statement, Andi, the president’s adviser on social and disaster management affairs, also recommended that the West Sumatra administration relocate its capital from the coastal city of Padang in anticipation of a massive earthquake. The city was devastated by a magnitude 7.6 quake in September 2009 that left more than 1,100 people dead and 250,000 families homeless.

Patra said that while relocating the capital was one possibility to prevent mass casualties in future disasters, it was a huge issue that would require the cooperation of both the provincial and central governments.

“It could be a good solution for the long term, but it’s not that easy, and in the meantime we need to look for short-term solutions too,” she said.

Established in July 2005, Kogami focuses on instilling a culture of disaster preparedness among the residents of Padang, Padang Pariaman, Pesisir Selatan and Pariaman in West Sumatra.

Patra said that training people to respond to an earthquake or tsunami was a key component of the group’s efforts.

In order to mitigate the fallout from a disaster, Kogami has set up a number of programs. It is involved in creating educational materials for school students and improving the capacity of officials and residents to respond to a disaster, among other efforts.

The organization includes 12 staff members, 200 volunteer facilitators and an international team of geologists from Indonesia, Japan, Germany and the United States.

However, Patra said Kogami still needed more members and volunteers to help.

“If Andi Arief could think wisely, we would welcome a recommendation from him for Karang Taruna and Tagana to work with us,” she said.

Karang Taruna is a national youth organization and Tagana is a disaster response team.

She also urged the government to finish the West Sumatra disaster map to allow disaster contingency plans to be drawn up.