Flooding swamps Tangerang
The Jakarta Post, Tangerang/Jakarta
More than 2,000 homes in Tangerang are under water on Tuesday, with rain continuing to pour down throughout the Greater Jakarta area.
The worst-hit areas, inundated by floodwaters two meters high, were located in Tanjung Burung, in the Teluk Naga district, near the Cisadane River.
But residents remain reluctant to leave their houses.
"The water slowly rose to one meter high on Sunday ... we stayed on because we expected it to recede quickly. Even now, many residents prefer to stay on their roofs," Unel, a resident who decided to leave her home, told The Jakarta Post.
Teluk Naga district head, Didi S. Wijaya, said that two families had been left homeless after their houses collapsed as a result of the floods.
Heavy downpours, compounded by a high tide, caused the river to overflow.
"The only way to deal with flooding here is to build a 1,000 meter embankment along the river and to dredge mud from the river," he remarked.
Floods have also disrupted at least 40 scheduled commuter trains traveling to Kota station, West Jakarta, on Tuesday, with railway tracks submerged in ankle-deep water.
Consequently, trains traveling from Tangerang, Bekasi, and Serpong could not reach their final destinations and had to stop at unaffected stations, said Akhmad Sujadi, spokesman for the Jakarta division of state railway operator PT KAI.
"There are electronic components that move the wheels that are located underneath the train, so it is dangerous to run through water above 10 centimeters," Sujadi was quoted as saying by Antara.
Normally, there are 326 scheduled electric trains catering to 450,000 passengers running every working day. About 40 percent of passengers travel on the Bekasi-Jakarta, Tangerang-Jakarta, and Serpong-Jakarta routes.
Trains from Bogor and Depok were not affected as they traveled on other lines.
Meanwhile, water levels in several villages in the Bekasi regency remained high on Tuesday. In the three villages of the Muara Gembong district -- Jaya Sakti, Pantai Harapan Jaya, and Lenggah Sari -- floodwater reached two meters high.
According to Bambang, a volunteer who helped evacuees, there were some 1,400 families affected by the floods in the three subdistricts.
Some 20 families took refuge at the local mosque.
"Most of them prefer to stay with their houses," he was quoted as saying by detik.com news portal.
In the neighboring Cabangbungin district, 600 families were affected by the flood up to Tuesday, but none had left their houses.
In the capital, water continued to recede, enabling the city administration to further downgrade its flood alert status.
Many flood evacuees have begun returning home to clean up their houses.
"But we're staying on alert because thick clouds continue to hang above the city," said one evacuee.