Floods recede as victims cry for help

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The floods, which have paralyzed the city for the last three days, slowly started to recede on Thursday but remained an inconvenience for many.

Meanwhile, many thousands of victims were in desperate need of help.

"We see the floods are beginning to go down today. I hope they'll go down even further," Subroto, an official at the Pasanggrahan floodgate in South Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday night.

He said that the water level in the sluices had gone down from 255 centimeters on Wednesday to 165 centimeters on Thursday. Several floodgates, including Katulampa in Bogor, and Manggarai in South Jakarta, also witnessed receding water levels.

Paulus Agus Winarno, an expert from the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, estimated that the rainfall had reached its peak during the five consecutive days up to Wednesday. A cumulative total of around 300 millimeters of rain fell on the city.

But he warned the public that heavy rain could still occur until the end of February.

Over the last two days, the floodwaters reached up to six meters in depth in the most severely affected area in Cawang, East Jakarta.

As of Thursday night, the floods were still disrupting daily activities and preventing thousands of people from leaving their homes.

Commuters on trains on the Rangkas Bitung-Tanah Abang line had to stop in Palmerah and continue their journey by other means of transportation as the Tanah Abang railway station in Central Jakarta had been inundated.

A number of factories in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, including the Mitsubishi plant, were closed because of the floods. "Maybe we will open again next Monday," Ramot S. told the Post.

Many government offices had also yet to return to normal. "Today some 25 percent of our employees are absent as they have to clean up their homes," said Sophia, a public servant with the city administration.

Although the floodwaters had receded from the Kebon Jeruk and Jagorawi toll roads, the toll road leading to Soekarno Hatta airport was still flooded up to a depth of one meter. Some cars were left stranded.

As the toll road was impassable, motorists had to seek alternative routes via Jl. Daan Mogot or Kapuk Kamal. Congestion on these roads was heavy, with the result that many intending passengers failed to get to the airport on time. "As a result, some 80 percent of flights were delayed," an airport official told the Post.

Iin Mumkin, an official with the city's education agency, said that some 170 elementary and junior high school buildings were still inundated, causing classes to be suspended.

The floods also damaged the telecommunications network with a total of 17,100 telephone lines in the Greater Jakarta suffering disruption.

As of Thursday, PLN had cut the electricity supply to 600 relay stations in the flood-affected areas, up from only 400 on Wednesday.

The floods have so far caused at least 17 deaths. Five persons were also missing, presumed washed away by the raging floodwaters in several areas.

Raya Siahaan, a secretary in the city's Center for Social Disturbance Control, said the floods had affected at least 365,450 people, or 93,387 families, across the capital.

Of the affected people, some 195,000 were taking refuge in school buildings, subdistrict offices and mosques, and even a public cemetery in the case of about 1,000 residents of Cipinang, East Jakarta.

Most of the victims are in urgent need of assistance, but seemingly little has been done to ease their sufferings. Worse still, the assistance provided was often inappropriate or even life-threatening.

Rice was distributed to many victims who were unable to cook it as their homes had been inundated.

Among the medicines distributed to the victims were at least ten large boxes of medicine that were due to pass their use-by dates in a matter of days.

Dr. Aryono Pusponegoro of the Ciptomangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) admitted that the Doxycycline 100 milligram antibiotics, aid from Japan, which was distributed to victims, should have been destroyed this month. But he said that the medicine was still safe to be used for up to six months after its expiry date.

"I think you shouldn't report this as we have worked hard to release the medicine from storage. We need it for the flood victims," he said.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri and a number of officials have visited the flood locations, but only some of them brought real assistance to the victims.

Megawati herself was welcomed by demonstrators when she visited the flooded Jl. Arus area in Cawang, East Jakarta, where the water reached up to six meters deep. Banners erected by residents read, among other things, "We don't need visits, we need food" and "We are flooded with water while officials are flooded with money".

Megawati toured the area in a rubber dingy.

Accompanied by Governor Sutiyoso, the President then visited Jl. Cipinang Pulau Maja, also in East Jakarta.

Meanwhile, public health officer Dr. Kusdiyanto at the Flood Monitoring Post admitted it was difficult for health officials to provide aid to the flood victims due to the limited number of rubber rafts available to evacuate them.