Bandung sees first rain in months
BANDUNG (JP): Drizzle fell on the city on Thursday, the first rain seen in the area for months, when the government experimented with cloud seeding to induce rain.
The rain fell on the city only briefly, for about 15 minutes. But the shower, also the result of efforts to artificially create rain, lasted longer in the Nagrek area just outside the city.
The Jakarta-based Agency for the Research and Application of Technology (BPPT) is launching its drive to induce rain in Java, which has suffered the brunt of the severe drought.
Water shortage has developed in many parts of the island, in West Java, Central Java and East Java, and thousands of hectares of rice crops are declared a total failure each day as the drought continues to take its toll.
This year's drought in Java came earlier than anticipated and caught many people unawares.
In West Java, BPPT works in cooperation with the state-owned Jatiluhur Authority which manages the Jatiluhur Dam, the source of water for a huge network of irrigation in the province, including the country's "rice bowls" such as Indramayu and Cirebon.
The agency also plans to conduct a similar operation in Central Java and East Java in the course of the next two weeks.
"The result is very encouraging," Muhammad Ulama, president of the Jatiluhur Authority, was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying. "This could help us overcome the drought."
Cloud seeding
BPPT used two Casa 212 planes, leased from private air operator Gatari, to seed the clouds by spraying finely ground salt.
In the first round of operation, the two planes left from the Husein Sastranegara airport and sprayed its 3.6 tons load of salt on clouds above the upstream of Cimanuk and Citanduy rivers.
Mimin Karmini, the BPPT official heading the operation, said the full effect of the operation would not be known until 24 hours later. There were good signs as drizzle fell on Bandung for about 15 minutes yesterday a few hours after the operation.
Mimin said the two rivers together irrigate 60,000 hectares of rice fields in Indramayu, 40,000 hectare in Ciamis and Cilacap and 50,000 hectares in Cirebon.
The two rivers also flow to the Jatiluhur dam.
The second operation, conducted a little later, in the Nagrek area near the top of Mt. Ciremai was more successful because rain fell immediately in the area and lasted longer.
It helped that there was a thick cloud in the area at the time, according to Ulama.
The second operation is intended to create rain along the Cimanuk river which is part of the Rentang irrigation network.
Ulama said the entire operation cost around Rp 250 million, with some 60 to 70 percent of it going towards fuel costs.
Ulama said the Jatiluhur dam still has plenty of water but many of the rivers which are part of the irrigation network have dried up.
A similar operation was conducted last year and helped raise the water content by as much as 106 million cubic meters in the Jatiluhur dam, and 397 million cubic meters in the Cirata dam, both in West Java. (pet/emb)