Floods victims worried of more wet days
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta's floodwaters started to recede on Thursday, but the cloudy and rainy day brought with it weariness and gloom for the thousands of its victims.
Several areas in the city, however, were still hit by flooding with water levels of between 30 centimeters and 100 centimeters.
Among them were Penjaringan, Kapuk Muara, Penjagalan and Pluit in North Jakarta; Duri Kosambi, Kapuk, East Cengkareng, Pekojan and Jembatan Lima in West Jakarta, along with Bukit Duri, Manggarai, and East Pejaten in South Jakarta.
Houses in the Kampung Melayu, Bidara Cina, Cipinang Besar, and Kramat Jati areas of East Jakarta were also still underwater.
Thousands of flood victims remained in temporary shelters, or on the second floors of their houses.
Sutrisno, who lives in Cipinang Besar, wondered when the floodwaters would retreat.
"Rumors say that the flooding will stop early in March. Is that true?" he asked.
The floods began to hit the city on Jan. 28, and continued to worsen for the rest of the week.
During its peak, the flooding rose up to eight meters as water inundated places that had never been touched by floods before -- including the front yard of the Presidential Palace on Jl. Merdeka Utara, Central Jakarta.
After two weeks, the floods finally started to abate, but the heavy rain that fell on Jakarta and Bogor on Wednesday during the previous night had caused the Ciliwung river, which originates in Bogor, to overflow.
At least 30 people in the capital have been killed by the floods, so far, while 15 others, largely young children and babies, have died from diarrhea and other flood-related ailments.
The Geophysics and Meteorology Agency has predicted that the rains would continue to fall at a medium pace until the end of the month.
Cyclone Chris, which hit Australia also affected southern part of Indonesia, including Jakarta and other areas in Java, only made things worse.
But the floods -- believed by many to be the worst in Jakarta's history -- were worsened considerably because of the serious environmental damage the city has suffered as the result of the poor city planning.
The uncontrolled construction of buildings in the Bogor and Cianjur regencies, which served as the water catchment areas for the capital, contributed to the floods.
Flooding was also was aggravated by inadequate plans by city government officials to anticipate and control the floods, while many water pumps in the floodgates did not function.
In a related development, a plan to reduce the amount of rainfall in Jakarta and its environs would not be realized soon, officials said, since the Assessment and Application of Technology Agency (BPPT) was still waiting for a response from the city administration.
The agency's plan was to artificially modify the weather on Friday.
"If our trial succeeds, then we will have to wait for the administration to give us the green light -- we have set up ten days of modification" for the program, Bambang Setiadi, the agency's head of natural resources development, said.
BPPT officials have said that they would need between Rp 700 million and Rp 900 million to complete the ten-day modification process with the hope that it would be partly financed by the city.
Governor Sutiyoso's failure to control the floods has prompted activists from 29 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and hundreds of flood victims to demand his resignation. They had staged several rallies to make their wishes public.
On Thursday, dozens of people, some of whom claimed to be poor Jakartans, staged a demonstration outside the City Council building in support of Sutiyoso.
"Sutiyoso's resignation would not solve the flooding," read one of the group's banners.
As it turned out, however, the group used a false address for their headquarters in an office in the Duta Merlin shopping center, Central Jakarta.
When reporters dialed the phone number protesters had given out, the person who answered said that he was not familiar with the group.