Flooding may hit Jakarta next week: Weather agency

Flooding may hit Jakarta next week: Weather agency

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakartans may need more than umbrellas next week, with the
Meteorological and Geological Agency (BMG) warning that floods
could hit a number of areas in the capital.

The city could experience three consecutive days of more than
100 millimeters of rain next week. With such intensity,
inundations were likely to occur in the city's flood-prone areas,
Achmad Zakir, head of the BMG's weather forecasting division,
said on Friday.

"We are warning the people of Jakarta, particularly those who
live in flood-prone areas, to anticipate possible flooding next
week, because based on our forecasts the intensity of the
rainfall will increase," Zakir told The Jakarta Post.

People should also be prepared to spend much more time on the
road, because if it does flood the city will certainly experience
heavy traffic congestion.

Numerous city officials have acknowledged that flooding will
remain a major problem in Jakarta over the next several years,
because the available flood control system is unable to cope with
the water. The Eastern Flood Canal, designed to ease flooding in
the capital, has been repeatedly delayed because of financial
difficulties.

The head of the City Public Works Agency, IGKG Suena, said
flood control projects carried out by his agency last year would
only ease the problem in five of 78 flood-prone areas in the
city.

Zakir said serious flooding could occur in areas near the
city's 13 main rivers, which will be swollen both by rainfall in
Jakarta as well as rain in upper areas like Bogor and Depok in
West Java and Tangerang in Banten.

He said the expected increase in rainfall next week would be
the result of strong winds flowing across the Indian Ocean, known
in Indonesia as the West Wind.

The winds, pushing thick clouds across the Indian Ocean, will
flow over the western part of Java island and some parts of
Sumatra island.

According to Zakir, the temperature of the sea surface will
reach 29 degrees Celsius, from a normal temperature of 27 degrees
Celsius.

"Because of the warmer sea surface the water will evaporate
more quickly. This will produce larger clouds which can produce
heavy rainfall," he said.

Zakir, however, could not say if next week would be the peak
of the rainy season. He would only say that the rainy season in
the city would be focused in January and February.

Meanwhile, the head of Extreme Weather at the Indonesian
National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, Rokhis Khomarudin,
said heavy rain was expected in many areas in the country,
particularly in the eastern regions.

According to Rokhis, the activities of a tropical cyclone in
the Indian Ocean would move from western Indonesia to eastern
Indonesia, causing heavy rain in the eastern part of the country.
However, he said rain would continue to fall in western
Indonesian as well.

He said rainfall in many parts of the country would be heavier
than in previous days.

Since the rainy season began, a number of areas, particularly
in western Indonesia, have been hit by serious flooding. Floods
have occurred in Bandung, Jambi, Lampung, South Sumatra and East
Java.