Jakartans told to beware of food, fuel shortages

Jakartans told to beware of food, fuel shortages

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta could face a worst case scenario, including food and fuel
shortages, due to possible widespread flooding over the next few
days if the city administration failed to anticipate the
disaster, officials said over the weekend.

Almost all of the city's warehouses are located in flood prone
areas, including the rice warehouses of the City Logistics Agency
(Dolog) in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, said Ismarlan A. Karim,
the head of logistics monitoring at the Jakarta Economic Affairs
Office.

He said that the fuel storage center of state-owned oil and
gas firm Pertamina in Prumpung, North Jakarta, which supplies
gasoline and kerosene to the city, was also located in a flood-
prone area.

It was also be impossible to distribute the salted fish stored
in warehouses in North Jakarta should major floods hit the area,
which is below sea level.

In the event of a natural disaster, administration officials
usually distribute packages of rice with noodles and salted fish
to flood victims.

Since the massive floods that hit the city last February, the
city administration has failed to take the necessary measures to
tackle the problem. To avoid flooding, important warehouses
should be raised above the ground.

"It's not our job. It's the responsibility of the City Public
Works Agency," he said.

But Ismarlan said that his office had asked the Flood Control
Crisis Center (Pusdalsis) to prepare large trucks to transport
supplies if worst came to worst.

The crisis center, which is located on the second floor of
City Hall, was reestablished last week after floods on Monday and
Tuesday. Representatives from city offices and agencies, as well
as police and military officers, were have been assigned to the
center.

The center, which is directed by City Secretary Ritola
Tasmaya, receives reports from the city's five municipalities on
the latest situation, although the reports are often late.

Last year, floods disrupted food and fuel supplies as the
warehouses, and fuel storage tanks in Prumpung, were cut off by
the floodwaters. Due to a lack of large trucks, supplies of food
and fuel were halted.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) earlier predicted
that floods might occur up until Feb. 20 due to heavy rain and a
high tide.

Besides the threat of shortages due to distribution problems,
widespread floods would inundate residential areas with highly
polluted water from the city's 13 rivers, thus posing a danger to
public health.

At least 300 major waste producers, including hospitals, do
not process their waste properly before dumping it into the
rivers.

If the rivers were to overflow, the polluted water could cause
skin diseases and other serious health problems.

"It's dangerous although they (the 300 waste producers) only
represent about 10 percent of the total number of 3,000 medium
and large industries here," said Ridwan Panjaitan, the head of
the environmental impact analysis division of the City
Environmental Office.

Ridwan claimed that his office had sent letters to the
polluters urging them to improve their liquid waste processing
capabilities.

Although floods routinely occur in the city, no serious
measures to prevent them have been put in place by the
administration.