Flooding keeps students away from school, kills elderly man

JAKARTA (JP): Major floods hit Riau and Aceh yesterday, drowning one villager, destroying dozens of houses and forcing hundreds of families to flee their homes.

In the Riau town of Dumai, the floods affecting six subdistricts have kept thousands of students from school since Monday.

Dumai regent Zainuddin Abdullah said floods hit the area every year although rivers were regularly dredged.

"There have not been any reports of casualties. The losses that the disaster has inflicted on the people are being estimated," Zainuddin was quoted by Antara as saying.

In Aceh, dozens of villages have been inundated and a 71-year- old man drowned in the Ulee Glee village, Pidie regency, in the major floods that have hit the area since Wednesday.

Some 10,000 residents from dozens of villages in Pidie regency were evacuated to safer ground. Widespread flooding has also been reported in the Jeunieb and Samalanga subdistricts, some 176 kilometers east of the capital, Banda Aceh.

A flood in Jeunieb forced 500 families to flee their homes and hundreds of hectares of paddy fields and shrimp ponds were destroyed. An irrigation system in Lhok Pudeng was damaged.

Saleh Yacoub, head of the social services office in Aceh, said his office could not send aid to the victims because it had not yet received complete reports from the field.

"I wonder why they (local officials) have failed to report on a disaster like this," he said.

North Aceh Regent Karimuddin Hasjbullah visited the stricken areas to hand over cash and a ton of rice yesterday.

Heavy rains over the past two days have caused flooding in several areas of Indonesia. In Central Java, three people were reportedly killed, two injured and dozens of houses damaged earlier this week.

The three who reportedly died were women who had slipped and fallen into the raging Wuluh River in Blora regency.

In the Kebumen regency, the embankment of the Kethek river burst and water inundated at least 50 houses and thousands of hectares of fields in the districts of Adimulya, Puring and Petanahan. Residents, however, have refused to seek shelter in other regions. (08)