Torrential rain. Spewing mud. Earthquakes. Landslides. Drought. Bird flu. And a wall of water four stories tall. Welcome to Indonesia.Over the past two and a half years, Indonesia has been victim to a multitude of natural disasters. From non-stop flooding to volcanic eruptions and even a freak mud geyser, Indonesia is seemingly a magnet for natural catastrophe.
Just two weeks ago, three-quarters of the nation’s capital city, Jakarta, were underwater due to weeks of non-stop rain, according to The New York Times. At least 80 people are reported dead from either drowning or electrocution.
On Feb. 17 and 18, eight people died and six were missing when floods caused two separate landslides, according to Reuters.
On May 29 a mud geyser erupted, sending mud flying and causing the evacuation of thousands from their homes. The mud geyser or mud volcano continues to belch forth between 7,000 and 150,000 cubic meters of mud every day since the eruption, according to GSA Today, a journal of the Geological Society of America.
“Tectonically they’re where all the action is,” said associate professor of geology Dave Dobson. “Indonesia is on the edge of a trench where the Pacific plates are underneath the Australian plate, and whenever that happens you’ll see a bunch of earthquakes, and you also get volcanoes.”
In addition to being tectonically active, Indonesia is climatologically active.
“That area is very sensitive to El Ni¤o,” said Dobson. “At different times in the El Ni¤o cycle you end up with a lot of extra rain falling here, causing flooding. At other parts of the El Ni¤o cycle you end up with all the rain that would fall here falling out in the middle of the Pacific, and at that point they have a bad drought.”
Despite geological reasons for the disasters, some Indonesians wonder if the increase in disastrous events recently may be the result of supernatural powers. A few speculate that the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has brought a curse to their country.
“Since the day he took office there have been unending disasters,” said parliament member Permadi to The New York Times.
This viewpoint presents an aspect of mysticism that many Indonesians reflect. The major religion of Indonesia is Islam. However, assistant professor of religious studies Eric Mortensen points out that Islamic mysticism is not prominent in Indonesia.
“It is not so much about Islamic mysticism as it is about the non-Islamic, or perhaps more accurately pre-Islamic, belief systems continuing to thrive, particularly in times of crisis,” said Mortensen.
In response to the curse theory Dobson said, “There are enough really obvious geological and climatic reasons why these things are happening.”
But mystics like Permadi say that Yudhoyono was born under a bad sign, and nature is directing its anger for the president towards the country.
“Empirical scientific explanations for events comprise only one modality of worldview,” said Mortensen. “Scientific explanations are no more ‘true’ than others. What matters, really, in this case, is that some Indonesians believe in possibilities and causalities outside of the scientific frame. I think we must be careful to avoid categorizing such beliefs as necessarily incorrect.