Jakarta is severely affected by the flooding, which has covered 75% of the city. This moring I saw photos in the Jakarta Post of people on tin roofs, warungs in 5 ft of water and locals using rafts, to navigate the dirty brown water. Here’s more from the Jakarta Post.
Floods hit some 75% of Jakarta, kill 29 people
JAKARTA (Agencies): Flooding in Jakarta has affected around 75 percent of the city, an official said Monday as the death toll from the disaster hit 29. Some 340,000 others have been forced from theirhomes.
Storm waters that inundated scores of residential areas and shopping districts late last week were still three meters (feet)deep in places, witnesses and an official say.
“As of today, 75 percent of Jakarta remains flooded,” saidAnwar Arifin, from Jakarta’s flood information center.
Meanwhile, the Jakarta Police recorded that the flood, which have occurred since Friday, had killed at least 29 people. The reasons of their deaths include electricity shortcuts, dragged by water flows, and illness.
Boats ferried emergency supplies to desperate residents of as overflowing rivers again burst their banks following days of rain.
The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) has forecast rainfor the next two weeks.
Hundreds of people remained on the second floors of their houses Sunday, either trapped or unwilling to abandon them despite warnings that muddy water running four meters (13 feet)deep in places may rise in the coming days.
The government dispatched medical teams on rubber rafts intothe worst-hit districts on Sunday amid fears that disease may spread among residents living in squalid conditions with limited access to clean drinking water.
Incessant rain over Jakarta and hills to its south sinceThursday triggered the city’s worst floods in recent memory, inundating tens of thousands of homes, school and hospitals inpoor and wealthy districts alike.
Authorities have cut off electricity and the water supply inmany districts.
Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, where millions live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains.
Jakarta regularly floods, though not on this scale. Dozens ofslum areas near rivers are washed out each year. Residents either refuse or are too poor to vacate the districts.
Ika said one of her friends, who is engaged to a westerner, was trying to fly out to Singapore, but couldn’t get to the airport. The flooding has affected not only the poor, but wealthy Jakartans, with businesses closed and transport impossible in places. Sewer water is mixed with the water flooding streets, plus standing water provides a perfect place for mosquitoes to breed. Add that to the lack of fresh drinking water and contaminated food, and you have a recipe for disease if this goes on too long.
Here’s the 10 day weather forecast for Jakarta. They have more rain coming in the next few days.
