On June 4 last year, people in the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province were sent into a panic by the sound of the city's tsunami warning sirens. There hadn't been an earthquake, but they weren't taking any chances after the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, which wiped out a third of the city's population. One woman handed her baby over to the driver of a passing car, begging the stranger to take her child to safety, a radio station manager told me.

Soon after the sirens went off in Banda Aceh, local commercial station Radio Djati FM started receiving calls and texts from its listeners demanding to know what was happening. The presenter called up Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency on air and broadcast live the embarrassing revelation that the warnings were false.

Station manager Herry R. says this is just one example of how radio can hold government accountable and give people vital information about disasters, both before and after they happen. "We support what is going on in the area, and since the tsunami, with everyone coming to work here on recovery, it would be funny if the media were silent about it. But we also have a social responsibility," he explains in his office next to the studio.

The tsunami took a very heavy toll on local media in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island. It devastated broadcasters, including Djati. But, Herry says: "Those journalists who survived the disaster did begin working again soon after." With external support, Djati was relaunched in January 2005, initially with the aim of supporting the tsunami recovery operation.

Aid agencies were given a weekly features slot over a three-month period to profile their work. There are still regular talk shows with guests from relief organisations, government agencies and affected communities, in which listeners can take part.

Djati decided it should go a step further, to play a pro-active role in helping people prepare better for disasters. In June it launched a nine-part series of 15-minute feature programmes on aid agencies' work to reduce the risk of disasters, which will be broadcast over the next six months.

As a starting point, Djati carried out a survey of the Acehnese population, in collaboration with NGOs and a local university, to assess people's knowledge and awareness on disasters. The report, published in May, concluded that many people are still in shock after the 2004 tsunami, and still aren't as prepared as they could be for any future disasters.

On the positive side, 41 percent of respondents said radio messages had helped them recognise that being prepared saves lives, and another 19 percent said they'd learned they could act to limit the impact of a disaster. Two-thirds of those interviewed also identified newspapers and TV as useful sources of information.

Building on this evidence about the importance of media, Djati hopes its new series will help communities improve their understanding of what they can do to protect themselves from disasters. The station also plans to train them to produce their own radio programmes.

"We need to tap into the point of view of ordinary people," says Herry. "Maybe they have something from their culture, from their daily life that we could use to help them become better prepared."

Kesia Meilanny, the journalist who produced the first programme, looking at the work of the British Red Cross in the region, was struck by how some communities had grasped the concept of disaster preparedness more enthusiastically than others. In particular, she was impressed by the work of a community-based action team in Paloh village on Pulo Breuh island off the northern tip of Aceh.

These voluntary groups, set up by the British Red Cross in 17 villages, map out risks - including floods, quakes and landslides - and plan ways to reduce the dangers. In Paloh, the team got together with a youth group to write and stage an entertaining drama about how to stay safe in disasters.

"In some places we visited, people thought disaster preparedness was just part of the aid programme, and it didn't really increase awareness. But in Pulo Breuh there is increasing self-awareness," says Kesia. "Through this drama, the community have gained a better understanding about disaster preparedness. For example, I saw that it was the initiative of young people to start a coastal plantation, which was then supported by the British Red Cross."

Juniati, programme manager at SPIN, a local NGO which has teamed up with Djati to produce the series, hopes aid agencies will also learn some useful lessons. "Many NGOs have been using community-based methods, but some have had problems, for example, with people wanting money to participate," she explains. "In one place, a community may respond well but in another not. So why are they reacting differently?"

Herry worries that some villages have received too much help from relief groups, which could leave them exposed as aid operations are scaled down. The British Red Cross, for example, wound up its tsunami recovery work this summer.

"Now people are starting to realise it's time for (aid agencies) to go. We have to think about how we participate in that transition - for example, enabling the community to make radio," he says. "But we are only facilitators, getting information from one side to the other. We hope people will learn from each other."

It seems there's still a long way to go when it comes to learning how to prepare for disasters. One priority, as demonstrated by last June's false alarms, is improving early warning.

Nigel Ede, programme manager for the British Red Cross in Aceh, emphasises the need to build clear, simple and effective local systems. "Who telephones (people) or warns them there's a disaster coming, especially a tsunami, so that they know when to act, when to actually move and take protective measures?" he said in an interview for the Djati feature.

"The early warning system is still not very clear and not very strong, especially right down at village level, and I think that... needs to be strengthened."

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