Annual floods loom as wet season arrives

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Heavy downpours have started in most parts of the city, yet despite last week's warning of rain from the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), few preparations appear to have been made.

The Jakarta Post observed little work in progress along the city's rivers although clogging islands of floating garbage were much in evidence.

Mounds of garbage floating on the water were to be seen at the Manggarai sluice gate in South Jakarta, and along the Pademangan river in Tanjung Priok district, North Jakarta.

A duty officer with the city's crisis center said that the water level in one of the largest rivers passing through the capital, the Ciliwung, had recently reached 230 centimeters, far higher than the normal level of between 100 centimeters and 120 centimeters.

"The longer the water level stays higher than normal, the more dangerous the situation will become. A flood could occur anytime," he said.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso acknowledged that at least 78 areas across the city were prone to flooding.

"Until such time as the East Flood Canal has been completed, we will have to be prepared for flooding every year," Sutiyoso said.

The planned East Flood Canal will connect five rivers in the eastern part of Jakarta and control water levels. The canal will augment the existing West Flood Canal, which was built by the Dutch East Indies administration to mitigate flooding in the western part of the city.

The canal project, however, has become bogged down by land acquisition problems with landowners demanding higher compensation for their land than the city is prepared to pay.

Flooding is an annual problem in Jakarta as 40 percent of the city's area is below sea level, with the fact that 13 major rivers flow through its boundaries only serving to worsen the situation. The unrestrained concreting over of open and green spaces in Jakarta and neighboring cities has also been blamed for exacerbating the problem.

The worst flood in the city's modern history took place early in 2002, killing at least 31 people and forcing more than 300,000 people to flee their homes. The flood paralyzed the capital for nearly a month.

The secretary to the Jakarta Flood Mitigation Committee, Haryanto Bajuri, said that the administration had established an online communications system linking 22 flood prone districts using text messages and the Internet.

"Those districts receive updates on the water levels at sluice gates every three hours. In an emergency, the updates can be sent out every hour," he told the Post.