November 28, 2025 | 10:54 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has yet to confirm whether to declare the situation in Sumatra a national disaster emergency. The head of state said he would continue to monitor the situation in the disaster-struck areas.
"Yes, we are monitoring the situation continuously. We keep sending aid. We will assess the situation later," said Prabowo at the Bank Indonesia Building, Jakarta, on Friday, November 28, 2025.
The Head of State emphasizes that the government will continue to send aid to the communities affected by natural disasters.
But he did not detail further what aid is being sent to the regions. He reiterated the commitment to continue monitoring the situation in Sumatra.
"We keep monitoring," he said.
The Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Lieutenant General TNI Suharyanto, earlier revealed the reasons why the government has yet to declare national disaster status for the floods and landslides in Sumatra.
According to Suharyanto, the disasters that have struck Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra still fall under the category of provincial-level regional disasters.
He explained that the disasters in these three regions seemed terrifying when information spread on social media. However, he claimed that the situation has improved.
"The national disaster status ever declared in Indonesia was the Covid-19 and the 2004 Aceh Tsunami," said Suharyanto in a press conference broadcast on BNPB's official YouTube channel on Friday, November 28, 2025.
Meanwhile, he went on, several disasters such as the Palu Earthquake, the earthquake in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), and the earthquake in Cianjur were not declared as national disasters.
Suharyanto said that the national disaster status is determined through various considerations, one of which is the scale of the casualties. Regarding the current disaster situation in Sumatra, he stated that it has not reached the threshold for declaring a national disaster status.
Nevertheless, Suharyanto acknowledged that the information circulating on social media created a sense of crisis and tension. He said that the tension arose when reports of isolated residents and disrupted communication networks surfaced. "Indeed, it looked frightening yesterday because it was being widely circulated on social media," said Suharyanto.
However, he assured that the situation in many areas has been improving once the rain has stopped. "Now the severe situation is only in Central Tapanuli," he said.
Extreme weather has resulted in floods and landslides in several cities and regencies in North Sumatra, West Sumatra, and Aceh over the past few days. As of Friday afternoon, the BNPB recorded a total of 174 deaths and 12,546 households displaced due to this disaster.
Ervana Trikarinaputri contributed to the writing of this article.
Editor’s Choice: BNPB Clarifies Why Sumatra Floods, Landslides Not Declared National Disaster
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