Cooperation in flood prevention vital: Governor
Cooperation in flood prevention vital: Governor
JAKARTA (JP): Governor Surjadi Soedirdja says it is impossible to rely on the city administration to overcome the flood problem.
"The municipality does not have adequate funds to make Jakarta free from flooding," the governor told reporters yesterday. "Therefore, the people's cooperation in flood prevention is necessary," he added.
People should not live along riverbanks and should not dump garbage into the rivers or waterways, he said.
"Many people are against the demolition of shantytowns along riverbanks. They are not aware that the shantytowns have been deteriorating the condition of 13 rivers in the city," he said.
The bad condition of those rivers is one of the factors causing the floods, he said.
Surjadi said he is cooperating with the West Java province in normalizing the rivers.
"The people should support the programs because the programs are very expensive," he said.
Surjadi said that the city flood control systems worked. He said the flood control programs are not meant to eliminate floods, but to reduce the severity of the floods.
"It's not easy to eliminate flooding, but every time I visit flood victims, they say the floods are not as bad as those that happened in the previous years," Surjadi said.
Surjadi said that the city's flood programs, such as the clean river program, are the best compared with other Indonesian provinces.
Dikes
Meanwhile, head of the Ciliwung-Cisadane Rivers Normalization Project, Siswoko, said yesterday that the IKPN housing complex in Bintaro, South Jakarta, needed an embankment to protect the residential area from annual floods.
He made the statements in connection to Monday's floods, which disrupted traffic in parts of the city. Water reached heights of 1.8 meters at the IKPN housing complex on Monday morning and a height of 2.3 meters in the evening.
Siswoko said a 10-meter-long dike must be built along the Pesanggrahan river, which runs through the Bintaro, Ciputat and Cileduk areas, to prevent the river water from spilling into the residential areas.
Heavy rains on Sunday and Monday, as well as water from West Java areas have been inundating several areas, including Cileduk, the IKPN housing complex, Bintaro and Ulujami in South Jakarta.
The flood caused traffic jams and forced many students to walk from Blok M bus terminal because buses and taxis refused to take them.
A man living in Bintaro said his daughter had to walk from Blok M bus terminal to her home because no taxi would take her. "My daughter arrived home almost at midnight, although her office closed before 6 p.m.," the father said. Buses plying Blok M - Bintaro routes also refused to operate.
The city now has 80 spots prone to flooding, 20 of which are in the "western stream section" of the capital, including the IKPN complex in South Jakarta, Palmerah in West Jakarta and Teluk Gong in North Jakarta.
Twenty-five locations are in the "central stream section" of the city, including the Pertamina housing complex in South Jakarta, Jati Petamburan in Central Jakarta, Taman Sari in West Jakarta and Jembatan II in North Jakarta.
The remaining 35 areas, including Cipinang Rambutan in East Jakarta, Jl. Bungur, Central Jakarta and Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, are in the "eastern stream section".(yns)