Floods hamper planting season

BANJARMASIN, South Kalimantan: Chronic flooding in the past three months has thwarted crop planting by thousands of farming families in the transmigration sites of Rawa Muning and Galam Rabah, Antara said on Friday.

"The floods have been here for three months," said the head of the local transmigration ministry office, Ambyah Ghozali.

The sites are home to 1,800 and 1,650 families, who are designated to till 8,000 hectares.

Many of the farmers have been forced to work at other jobs.

The province has 135 transmigration sites on which 241,000 people have been resettled in the past 30 years.