Many flood victims have return home

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As the sun shone Wednesday, albeit intermittently, the majority of flood victims returned home for the first time to find their houses full of mud and garbage.

Karsan, whose house in Halim, East Jakarta, was completely flooded could only sigh as he surveyed his semi-permanent house which he had to abandon four days earlier.

"I want to clean the house, but I can't because I don't have any money and I have to work," said Karsan, an ojek (bicycle taxi) driver and father of three.

His exhausted wife struggled to remove waste from the house.

Piles of garbage were seen scattered in many areas, not only in traditional markets, but also along the streets even though the Jakarta Sanitation Agency had deployed 197 trucks to remove 3,020 cubic meters of garbage from the city's streets.

Assistance is still badly needed for those who have returned home or those who are still accommodated in shelters as most of their belongings were swept away by the floods.

There is actually lots of aid for the victims, not only from the central government and the city government, but also from various charity foundations, non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies, political parties, companies and individuals.

Australia, for example, handed over A$1 million (about US$500,000), the People's Republic of China US$20,000, the United Kingdom Rp 150 million (less than US$15,000), and the U.S US$250,000.

Some of the assistance came in unusual forms, like 60 tons of salt fish from the Bangka island administration.

But, there is a problem of distribution, not only because some locations could not be easily reached by the donors, but also because in many areas the assigned officers did not distribute the aid fairly.

Many flood victims complained that aid officials distributed aid "selectively" at several flood monitoring posts, while charity organizations also complained that the officers hampered the distribution of assistance.

The complaints came from various parts of the city, including Halim and Cipinang in East Jakarta, and in Semanan, Kapuk, Bojong Indah, and Rawa Buaya in West Jakarta.

Minah, who was still sheltering in a mosque in Semanan, said that her family could not depend on the flood posts for their meals, adding that sometime she only received ready-to-serve rice once a day.

"The food does not always come at the right time. We have been hungry. We must buy food for our meals. But I do not know how we will get the food when we have run out of money," said Minah, who, along with hundreds of other people, had been in the shelter for more than two weeks.

Amanah, head of a neighborhood unit in Semanan subdistrict, said that around 4,500 people in his areas were affected by the floods. Half of them had returned home, while others remained in temporary shelters as the water level in their houses were still one meter high.

She said there was no problem with food distribution.

But other Semanan residents denied Amanah's claim, saying that not all people in the areas had received the same treatment.

"Officers of the official flood post discriminated against us as they only focused on the permanent residents here, while the temporary residents who rent houses received little attention," said a 32-year-old man who refused to give his name.

Semanan is one of the areas which was severely hit by floods. It is also one of the remaining 28 subdistricts still underwater.

Over the weekend, floods affected nearly two thirds of Greater Jakarta.

Similar complaints came from Tati Ardianti, a flood victim in Pengadegan subdistrict in South Jakarta. She said that the official flood post received various provisions like eggs, milk, instant noodles, biscuits and also secondhand clothes.

"The subdistrict officials selected the items before delivery to the victims. I saw with my own eyes that there was a small truck which brought milk and biscuits here, but they never reached us," said the woman, who was sheltered in a school building.

Mega Prianti of Suara Ibu Peduli (Voice of Concerned Mothers) said she had difficulty distributing aid directly as many officers told her that the aid should be distributed through the aid posts.

She said that she preferred to deliver the aid directly to the victims because she had heard complaints from the victims that not all of the assistance from various organizations and individuals was getting through.

"They asked us to directly hand over the aid to them," said Mega, adding that she would negotiate with the officials so that her organization could give the aid to the victims directly.

"Or sometimes we had to give a small part of our aid to the posts, and delivered the rest to the flood victims ourselves," she said.