Planned subway amid floods

Planned subway amid floods

From Bisnis Indonesia

In short succession Jakarta early this year had two floods of terrible magnitude, with water levels far above those of previous years.

The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) said that flood water originating in Bogor could no longer be considered the cause of the Jakarta floods (Business News Feb.14.)

Events in 1996 have clearly shown that Jakarta's capacity to absorb and channel water continues to decline. The high level of flood water was caused by the reclamation of Jakarta's coast for residential areas like Pantai Indah Kapuk, Pantai Mutiara, Pluit and the filling of swamps for housing complexes such as Sunter, Kelapa Gading and Ancol.

Walhi estimates that floods in the future will become worse considering that the Kapuk Naga coast will also be reclaimed.

What about the plan to build a subway from Kebayoran to Kota? What catastrophes will we have when flood water enters the subway?

It seems that the safest transportation system would be a suspension railway similar to the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal, Germany, because it would be out of reach of flood water. The drawback would be that passengers would not be able to leave the train except by boat.

DJOHAN SURYANA

Jakarta