Heavy downpours hamper flights

PADANG, West Sumatra: Tuesday's heavy downpours crippled the West Sumatra capital of Padang, aborting all flights to and from Tabing Airport.

Airport officials said that all flights to and from Medan, Jakarta, Pekanbaru and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) had been delayed.

The head of the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency at the airport, Emrizal, said that the rains, which started at 5 a.m. made the visibility, during the morning, less than three kilometers, and that by the afternoon this had been reduced to only 1.5 kilometers.

"It is impossible for a pilot to land his plane on the runway in such poor visibility. No single plane landed until this afternoon," he said, adding that reasonable visibility meant at least 3.6 kilometers in order for a pilot to land a plane.

He added that the airport had no facility to help a plane land in such bad weather.

Emrizal estimated that the bad weather would continue for the next two days.

The rains also flooded several segments of the roads in Padang. In the areas vulnerable to flooding, such as Siteba, Lubuk Buaya and Bandar Purus, water levels reached some 1.5 meters.

Yuen Karnofa, spokesman for the Gubernatorial office said he had yet to receive any reports on floods or landslides. (28/sur)