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How life goes on after an earthquake: The ‘Lego schools’ of Lombok
Al Jazeera
On the Indonesian island, school classrooms built from earthquake-resistant, recycled plastic are helping children back to school.
Lombok, Indonesia – Azra, 13, recalls running out of her house when a violent magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck one evening about six years ago. Most people were inside their homes eating or watching television.
“We saw the houses collapsing one by one, it brought a big trauma for us,” she recalls.
The shallow inland earthquake that hit the northwest of the island on August 5, 2018, was the strongest ever recorded on Lombok, killing 560 people and damaging or destroying nearly all structures in the rural region that is a two-hour drive through forested mountain passes from the main town of Mataram in the south.
Azra’s home was also destroyed. “I was thankful there were no victims in my family, but I felt very sad because I know how my parents had struggled with money to build our home,” she says.
In the villages along the coastal road, simple homes have since been rebuilt and life around the lean-to shops and warungs (kiosks or small eateries) selling fried chicken and rice appears to have returned to normal. But the disaster is having a lasting effect on children’s education.