Jakarta faces flood misery, 340,000 displaced

Jakarta, Feb 5: Indonesia's capital faced more misery today from floods that officials estimate have killed at least 20 people and displaced 340,000, as swollen rivers and canals spilled muddy water onto the city streets.

The flooding in parts of the tropical city of nine million people has been up to 4 metres (13 feet) deep, causing blackouts, cutting telephone lines and blocking key roads.

Floods are common in Indonesia during the rainy season, but the devastation of recent days has been the worst in five years, and meteorology officials have warned the city could suffer heavy rains until the end of the month.

''In Jakarta, Bekasi and Tangerang, 340,000 people have been displaced,'' Rustam Pakaya, a health ministry official said by telephone, referring to two areas around the capital.

Officials are also concerned water contamination and the displacement of so many people could bring disease in a city already struggling with a surge in cases of dengue fever.

I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, a Jakarta police spokesman, had said on Sunday that seven people were dragged under water by strong currents and nine were electrocuted, while others died of sickness.

An official at the country's Meteorology and Geophysics agency said downpours were continuing with fluctuating intensity in and around Jakarta today.

Floods in the city can often spring up in one area and recede in another as water from rain in upstream areas such as Bogor feeds into rivers criss-crossing the city.

Yesterday, a key sluice gate on a canal that runs through central Jakarta was opened because of heavy run-off from upstream, increasing flooding in the city.

Kartawi, an official at the Jakarta crisis centre, said today that water levels at sluice gates were almost back to normal in the city.

Taxis have been barred from the toll road to the airport because of flooding, with the route restricted to high-wheeled vehicles, police said.

Newspapers questioned today why more has not be done to prevent flooding in the low-lying city originally built on swampland after severe flooding five years ago.

''Obviously the city did not learn anything after the last one, in 2002, because when the floods did come after those warnings, many of us were unprepared, and the city administration was even more helpless,'' the Jakarta Post said.

The construction of a canal aimed at containing floods has been delayed by squabbles over land purchases, the paper said.

Officials have also blamed excessive construction in Jakarta's water catchment areas and the building of luxurious villas and housing complexes around the city of Bogor for accelerating water run-off into rivers flowing to the capital.

Reuters

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