Dry season to start next month: BMG

A. Junaidi, Jakarta

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) announced on Friday that the dry season would start next month and peak in August, causing drought in many parts of the country.

"We predict that the dry season will last for three months," BMG head Gunawan Ibrahim said at a press conference here on Friday.

Gunawan said this year's drought would not be as severe as last year's since the El Nino phenomenon would not take place this year.

According to Gunawan, drought would hit many parts of East Java and some parts of Central Java, West Java, Aceh, South Sumatra, Lampung Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and southeastern Maluku.

He revealed that the worst drought could be expected in the regencies of Jember and Bangkalan in East Java, Tangerang in Banten, Bekasi in West Java, Gunung Kidul in Yogyakarta and Jepara in Central Java.

"While drought will hit those regencies, rain will fall in some parts of the country including some parts of Sumatra, Kalimantan and North Sulawesi," he said.

Acting coordinating minister for people's welfare A. Malik Fadjar said the dry season would also reduce the volume of water in 58 dams across the country.

"We will conduct cloud seeding in some parts of Java and Sumatra and provide water trucks, as well as help people to make wells in anticipation of the drought," Malik said.

He said the government would provide 30 kilograms of free rice per month for poor families and manual work with a daily wage of Rp 15,000, including repairing irrigation facilities, for the unemployed.

He said the government would also provide free medicine at community health centers since health problems, such as stomach, skin and respiratory diseases, commonly occurred during the dry season.

"We hope the situation will not be exploited by presidential candidates for their own interests," he said.

The country will conduct its first direct presidential election on July 5 and a possible runoff on Sept. 20.

Five candidates -- Wiranto, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Amien Rais, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Hamzah Haz -- are contesting the July 5 direct presidential election.

According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, several farming areas in the country have suffered drought since January this year. Some 447 hectares of farmland were affected by drought in March, 960 hectares in April and 786 hectares in May.

Two years ago, some 80,000 hectares of farmland across the country suffered crop failure due to drought while last year, 30,000 hectares of farmland was affected.