City told to prepare for possible floods
City told to prepare for possible floods
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Meteorologic and Geophysics Agency (BMG) warned on Monday of
possible heavier-than-normal downpours hitting the Greater
Jakarta area as the rainy season came a month behind schedule.
"We must seriously anticipate the possibility of very heavy
rainfalls this season, particularly during its peak in January,"
chief of public meteorological services Achmad Zakir told The
Jakarta Post.
There were four general kinds of downpours, he said. Light
(below 25 millimeters), medium (between 26 and 50 millimeters),
heavy (between 51 and 100 millimeters), and extreme (more than
100 millimeters).
It takes only 75 mm of rain a day over three consecutive days
to cause flooding in the capital.
Meteorological studies show that most rainy seasons have a
regular amount of downpours. If there is a delay in the start of
a rainy season, its rainfalls are generally heavier than those in
an extended season.
The BMG had earlier predicted the rainy season would occur in
mid-October but now Zakir said the agency believed it would come
later this month or in early December.
Previously, the city administration announced there were 78
flood-prone areas in the city, which were generally submerged
during the rainy season. River dredging would only ease the
floods, not solve them, it said.
Garbage seen clogging major rivers including the West Flood
Canal would only worsen flooding as it hindered their ability to
drain the city, officials said.
Zakir said he could not predict whether floods would be as bad
as in 2002, when nearly two-thirds of the city was submerged.
At that time, at least 168 of 262 subdistricts in the city
were swamped. Thirty-one people died in the disaster and more
than 300,000 residents were forced to leave their homes and stay
in temporary shelters.
Zakir warned people living near riverbanks to stay alert for
possible landslides as the land in those areas was prone to
erosion especially at the beginning of the wet season.
Recent precipitation in the city has led experts to predict
the beginning of the rainy season. The heaviest rain so far
occurred on Sunday when water flooded roads in many parts of the
capital.
Zakir said the city was currently in a transitional period
from the dry to rainy season. Indications of this were that the
rains occurred only during the evenings or at night and were
still relatively rare. Outbreaks of rain at this time of year
were often accompanied by electrical storms, and stronger-than-
normal winds, he said.
Zakir advised the local government to trim back tall trees as
they were prone to collapsing and disrupting power supplies, he
said.