Jakarta under water

Jakarta under water

What millions of people in Jakarta had feared, has happened.
Floodwaters engulfed many parts of the capital on Thursday. As a
consequence, in the early hours of the day, tens of thousands of
residents had to leave their homes and belongings to seek refuge
on higher ground as the water rose to more than one meter high in
many places.

As was the case last year, again, the early warning system did
not quite work. There were reports that water-pump operators were
not put on alert when the floods started to inundate residential
areas at around midnight. And when they were, some pumps did not
function.

Again, the rescue operation system did was not work as
expected. Most of the people in the affected areas had to find
their own way to safety. And worse, many chose to brave the
floods and stay home to protect their homes and belongings from
possible looting. Only a few police officers were seen around the
flooded areas on Thursday.

It is not surprising that many residents directed their anger
at Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso and his entourage, who decided to
cruise through some affected areas in a boat.

It seems that the capital city has not learned from last
year's lesson, when floods submerged many parts of the city for
several days in early February and caused billions of rupiah in
damage, claiming 34 lives and displacing nearly 400,000 people.

Jakarta is prone to flooding, which occurs every year in the
rainy season in January and February. The city's vulnerability is
due to the fact that much of its area lies below sea level
through which 13 rivers flow, carrying rain water from the higher
and deforested hinterland south of the city.

The vulnerability increases at the same rate, at least, as
rate of the shrinkage of the catchment areas to the south. This
shrinkage has been going on for years, while there have been no
serious efforts to control it -- and not because of a lack of
regulations.

The Jakarta city administration itself has worsened the
problem by recklessly issuing property development licenses
covering more and more areas that for centuries had been
functioning as natural catchment areas. Even mangrove forests,
which decades ago lined most of the seashore north of the city,
have been rapidly disappearing and are being replaced by property
development which hampers the flow of water from the hinterland
to the south to the open sea in the north.

Public pressure to impose a moratorium on construction in
water catchment areas, not to mention to revoke existing
construction permits, obviously misbegotten, has fallen on deaf
ears.

Under these circumstances, whenever heavy rains fall on the
deforested mountainous hinterland south of the city and at the
same time heavy rains pour on Jakarta itself, disaster is
imminent. Add to that the fact that the sea tides are highest
during the full moon, and the Indonesian capital city is rendered
powerless to fight the water, a victim of its own avarice.

This weekend, will be a full moon. And there is a high
probability of tropical storms bringing heavy rains. This time,
the floods probably will not be as bad as those of last year. But
even so, Jakarta residents need to brace themselves for the
worst. More importantly, however, Jakarta badly needs to
acknowledge its high vulnerability to yearly flooding and
formulate some strategic plans to eventually control its negative
impacts. No less important, it must prevent the further
deterioration of the environment.

All this is not the responsibility of the governor or the
government alone. As it concerns the basic interests of the whole
population of the capital city, the people of Jakarta should
stand together and formulate their own agenda.