Kebumen prepares land to relocate landslide victims

Kebumen prepares land to relocate landslide victims

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Kebumen

Several hundred families left homeless after recent floods and
landslides wreaked havoc in West Java's Kebumen regency, were to
be relocated, a local official said.

Kebumen Regent Rustriningsih said the local government, in
cooperation with state-owned forest company PT Perhutani, had
prepared a 100-hectare land plot for the relocation of an
estimated 600 families.

Rustriningsih said here on Wednesday that the local
government, using central government funds, would develop several
hundred half-completed simple homes on the land for the landslide
victims.

"The local administration will gain Rp 2 billion in assistance
from the central government. Rp 1.5 billion will be used to build
half-completed houses while the remaining Rp 500 million will be
used to develop public facilities and roads," she said.

She added that the half-completed houses were expected to be
completed by the new residents.

Rustriningsih reiterated that the local administration would
continue to persuade the victims to move to the housing compound
because it was impossible for them to go back to their villages
in the landslide-prone mountainous areas.

She said the relocation project would begin in January 2002
and was expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Besides the landslides that destroyed hundreds of houses in
several subdistricts in the regency, the flood has also inundated
thousands of houses and damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares
of paddy field in Cilacap, Banyumas and other parts of the
regency.

The deluge, which has not been declared a national disaster,
has caused an estimated Rp 20 billion in material losses to the
local people.

The local administration is planning to deepen the Telomoyo
River in the regency and build dikes to prevent or limit future
flooding.

Rustriningsih said more and more local people had taken refuge
following continuous rain over the last four days.

Samsul Bachri, chief of the social affairs ministry office in
Kebumen, called on local people not to slash trees in forested
areas in the regency because it would result in increased
landslides and flooding.

He said the local administration had detected eight
subdistricts prone to landslides and flooding and they were
located in mountainous and mountainous areas.