Railroad to return to normal by Tuesday

The Jakarta Post Jakarta

The state-owned rail company, PT Kereta Api Indonesian (KAI), had completed on Monday more than 60 percent of the repair work on damaged tracks in Batang regency, Central Java, officials said.

The main Jakarta-Semarang-Surabaya railroad along the north coast of Central Java is expected to begin returning to normal by not later than Tuesday evening, they added.

"If there is no more rain tonight (Monday night), the repair work will be completed tomorrow (Tuesday)," Makbul Sujudi, head of KAI operations region IV in Semarang, said at Kuripan railway station in Batang.

However, the newly-appointed KAI president director Omar Berto said that it would take at least three days counting from Monday to repair the tracks seriously damaged by the flash floods which were triggered by torrential rains on Saturday and Sunday.

He said his men had been working hard to build emergency bridges to replace the collapsed ones so that trains would be able to resume serving the north coast line from Surabaya to Jakarta and vice versa.

KAI Head of Human Relations Gatot Wibowo said the damage to the tracks had caused potential losses of Rp 3.5 billion to the company as all traffic on the line had been halted since Sunday night.

With a two-kilometer section of track having been cut, all executive and economy class trains serving the Jakarta-Semarang- Surabaya route, which runs along the north coast, had to be rerouted to the south coast line via Tegal, Prupuk, Purwokerto and Yogyakarta.

Makbul said the flash floods swept away the soil in at least 15 locations in Batang, leaving the 25-meter long track hanging between four and five meters above the ground.

The most serious damage to the tracks was found between two bridges over the Kali Urang and Kali Boyo rivers, where pillars supporting the tracks collapsed after being swept away by the floods, he said.

Meanwhile, the KAI director of operations region III in Cirebon, Bidjak Filasdjati, and the station master of the city's railway station, Suhartono, said all trains that were rerouted to the north coast line arrived in Surabaya or Jakarta around six hours behind schedule.

Bidjak denied that the business class Cirebon Express from Cirebon to Jakarta had been canceled.

He said his office has anticipated possible damage to the railroad in Cirebon caused by the continuing rains and flooding in West Java.

In Surabaya, the Argobromo and Gumarang trains from the nation's second biggest city to Jakarta, which run along the north coast line, were canceled to reduce traffic congestion on the south coast line.

"The north coast line has not been reopened yet. To reduce the congestion on the south coast line, we are reducing the frequency of train departures," the KAI head of operations region VIII in Surabaya, Sudarsono, said.

"We are transferring prospective passengers of the Argobromo to the Argo Angrek to take them to Jakarta, while those from the Gumarang have been transferred to the Sembrani serving the same destination," he said.

With the cancellation of the Argobromo and Gumarang trains, there are only three trains now traveling from Surabaya to Jakarta -- the Kertajaya, Argo Anggrek and Sembrani -- via the south coast line.

Meanwhile, a 65-member joint search and rescue team was combing the flood-hit areas in Batang on Monday to look for three missing victims who were washed away by the floodwaters.

"The joint team is continuing to search for the victims who were swept away by the floods," Batang Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Edy Setjo said.

The three victims were residents of Pemalang town in Central Java, and were washed away on Sunday along with their Isuzu Panther van at Adinuso village in Subah. They have been named as Lim Eng Hie, 50, Lin Cou Hua, 53, and Engkong, 80.

The driver of the van survived.

The body of another passenger -- identified as 50-year old Sin Yot -- has been found.