The worst floods in many decades hit the capital

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The current flooding in Jakarta was being called the worst in the modern history of the city as flooding continued through Wednesday affecting hundreds of thousands of people following five days of incessant rain in the city and in the highlands of Depok and Bogor, where the city's 13 rivers originate.

The head of the City's Public Order Agency, Firman Hutajulu, whose agency is tasked with helping flood victims, said on Wednesday that over 233,000 people from across the capital were seriously affected. Millions more were indirectly affected by traffic jams.

He said that 30,000 flood victims had been evacuated to a number of public facilities, such as school buildings, mosques, office buildings and temporary tents.

The worst affected area was North Jakarta, where some 94,000 people have their houses inundated, followed by West Jakarta with 84,000 victims, East Jakarta with about 37,000, South Jakarta with 17,867 and Central Jakarta with 1,591.

The floods on Wednesday also claimed six lives, including Abdul Rosyid, 20, a resident of Cawang subdistrict, Lukman, 25, from Pondok Pinang subdistrict, Pendi ,70, and Nursellah in Kramat Jati district, as well as the wife and a child of Lt. col. Guswandar in Cakung, North Jakarta.

This year the annual floods are not only affecting slum areas, but also a number of luxury housing complexes, such as Kedoya Permai and Puri Kembangan in West Jakarta, which had never been affected before.

The floods were also worse. "The flood water in Ciledug has reached about three meters while in the previous years it was no less than one meter," said a former resident of the area.

In Cawang subdistrict, East Jakarta, water levels were recorded at six meters, forcing as many as 3,655 people to leave their houses.

In Manggarai, South Jakarta, water inundated hundreds of houses, sparking panic among locals.

The floodgate there also showed an alarming level of water, which reached 990 centimeters. Its normal level during the rainy season is 800 centimeters.

A minor incident occurred near the floodgate when dozens of people tried to force the public works officers to open the gate so that the flood waters would ease in their areas.

But the officers, with the help of the police, managed to prevent them from causing any further disruption.

Secretary of the city's control center for social disturbances, Raya Siahaan, said if the gate was opened, half of Jakarta, including exclusive housing complexes in Menteng, Central Jakarta, where former president Soeharto lives, would be severely affected.

In Tangerang, the floods spread on Wednesday to three more districts, Batu Ceper, Neglasari and Karawaci, inundating 3,100 more houses. But no fatalities were reported.

With the wider flooding on Wednesday, a total of about 10,000 houses were inundated in nine districts of the municipality. On Tuesday six districts were also affected, namely Jatiuwung, Cipondoh, Periuk, Karang Tengah, Cibodas and Pinang.

Tangerang Deputy Mayor Harry Mulya Zain said that based on reports from the affected districts, flood waters had reached the height of between one and three meters.

The municipal secretary Achmad Sudjai said that his administration would summon a number of developers, which built the housing complexes in the nine districts, to discuss how to solve the flood problems, which are being partly blamed on them.

But local residents have blamed the municipal administration. They said that the administration violated its own master plan by giving the contracts to developers.

Achmad said that Tangerang Mayor M. Thamrin had instructed all his subordinates to evacuate all of the flood victims to safe places. The administration also allocated some Rp 250 million to assist all the victims.

In Bogor, heavy rains continued to pour incessantly on Wednesday, causing the upper Ciliwung river, which empties into the Java Sea after meandering through Jakarta, to overflow.

The Ciliwung river's floodgate in Katulampa saw its water level increase sharply from between 70 and 80 centimeters on Tuesday to over 160 early on Wednesday.

Aos Firdaus, a staff member at the floodgate said that if the water level reached 160 that meant they had to be on "first-alert status", because the river was dangerously close to overflowing its banks, which could mean unprecedented problems.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso declared on Wednesday first alert, particularly for those who live along the Ciliwung and the Pasanggrahan. He urged all people living there to leave their houses immediately as the water could sweep them away at anytime.

Paulus Agus Winarso, an expert of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), said the floods in the capital were worsened by the heavy rains in Bekasi with a rainfall of 250 millimeters and Bogor with a rainfall of 150 millimeters on Tuesday.

Paulus said the deluge in Jakarta Wednesday was not as bad as Tuesday, only measuring about 100 millimeters. "But because the rain took place for three consecutive days, it contributed significantly to the floods," he added.

Previously, he said that the rains during the last major flood that occurred in 1996 reached a total of 400 millimeters.