Potential Tsunami Hazard on the Coast of the Indonesia’s New Capital Candidate

Abstract On the 26th of August 2019, the Indonesian government announced the location of the new nation’s capital city. The plan to move the capital city raises various pros, cons, and several challenges, including those from natural disaster aspects. East Kalimantan’s coastal area faces the Makassar Strait waters which have the potential for tsunamis, either originating from landslides or from the megathrust. The megathrust earthquake that has the potential to cause a tsunami in the area is the megathrust of North Sulawesi. In 1997, an earthquake measuring 7.9 Mw originating from the megathrust caused a catastrophic tsunami. According to Peta Gempa (Pusgen, 2017), the North Sulawesi Megathrust has the worst potential for an earthquake of magnitude 8.5. In this research, the tsunami wave height and the estimated time of arrival will be simulated using the TUNAMI numerical model. In addition, analyses from the simulation results are also made for coastal areas with high activity and large population (Palu, Toli-toli, Donggala, Mamuju, Samarinda, Berau, Kutai, and Bontang). The simulation results of this model show that the maximum height of the tsunami waves on the coast of East Kalimantan is 0.83 meters and the arrival time is around 1.6 to 2 hours.