Jakarta braces for annual floods
Damar Harsanto The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
As part of an early warning system, telemetric devices have been installed at monitoring posts along the Ciliwung and Cisadane rivers, but officials still warned on Thursday that little could be done to prevent floods in the capital.
The director of Task Force for the Development of the Ciliwung and Cisadane Rivers at the Ministry of Public Works, Pitoyo Subandrio, also said that his office now had 11 mobile pumps available for areas that may flood.
The smallest of the pumps is capable of pumping water out at up to 80 liters per second, while the largest can do 400 liters per second. The government of Japan has donated the pumps to the ministry under a grant scheme.
"We have placed some telemetric devices at river monitoring posts in Katulampa and Depok. The devices are connected online to the flood monitoring center here so we can get real-time information about the water level and situation in the upstream areas much earlier to anticipate floods," Pitoyo said.
Pitoyo added that at least 130 flood monitors would be in place around the clock at the monitoring posts with their radios on as a back-up communication system for the telemetric devices.
Pumps are vital during the flood season since at least 78 locations in the city are prone to flooding. Forty percent of the city's area is below sea level. The condition is further worsened by the presence of 13 major rivers flowing through the capital.
The task force has also readied eight rubber dinghies, several trucks to load sandbags and two long-legged cranes.
Djoko Prajitno, the task force's coordinator, warned, however, that little could be done to prevent floods that have become annual occurrences in the city of approximately 12 million people.
"In terms of flood mitigations instruments and an early warning system, we are better prepared than in 2002, when we had to cope with the huge flood in January of that year. Still, we cannot ensure that there will be not be a flood of similar magnitude in the future," said Djoko.
The worst flood in the city's modern history took place early in 2002 when floods inundated two-thirds of the city, killing at least 31 residents and forcing over 300,000 people to flee their homes for temporary shelters. The flood paralyzed the capital for nearly a month.
Djoko said that flooding was nearly inevitable in the city because of the absence of system to control the volume of river water coming from the hills to the south of the city.
He revealed that no single sluice gate was available along the rivers to block or slow down the flow of water in the case of large storms in the mountains near Bogor.
"Many residents have misunderstood that we have sluice gates that can control the water level. That's just not true. We don't have them," he said.
He explained that the flow of river water from areas up stream near Katulampa would take four hours to reach Depok and between eight and nine hours to be at the Manggarai sluice gate in South Jakarta.
"That's why our main concern is how to send an early warning as quickly as possible to the residents along the rivers to prepare for evacuation if necessary," he said.