Jakarta floods recede: Thousands displaced
FLOODWATERS have started to recede after inundating areas of Jakarta and displacing residents as rains reached what is expected to be their seasonal peak over the weekend.
As of 5pm (1000 GMT) on Sunday, South Gunung Sahari subdistrict in Central Jakarta was the last area to be inundated with floodwaters above 150cm, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) website for real-time flood information, petabencana.id.
Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) head Subejo said the flooding had subsided and the number of inundated areas was decreasing.
“We hope that in the next few days the risk of flooding will get lower,” he told The Jakarta Post via text message on Sunday.
Some people are still displaced, living in shelters as they wait for the mud in their neighbourhood to be cleaned up, an agency statement released earlier on Sunday said.
The number of displaced residents declined to 1,575 people on Sunday from 2,867 people on Saturday. They took refuge in 13 shelters, 10 of which were located in East Jakarta, two in South Jakarta and one in North Jakarta.
The capital has been grappling with flooding since the New Year’s Eve disaster which, according to BNPB, claimed 51 lives and displaced 27,971 people due to an allnight extreme rain.
The rainfall intensity – the ratio between the total amount of rainfall and its duration – reached 377mm per day during the disaster, according to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).
Despite heavier rainfall intensity during New Year’s Eve, the BMKG has said that Jakarta had not yet experienced the peak of the rainy season, predicting that it would peak between late January and early February.
Since Friday, more floods have hit the capital. East Jakarta recorded at 6pm (1100 GMT) on Saturday the highest number of inundated areas with 20 sub-districts, followed by North Jakarta with nine sub-districts, South Jakarta with eight subdistricts, West Jakarta with five subdistricts and Central Jakarta with three sub-districts, data from BPBD Jakarta shows.
The floods have claimed no lives so far but have displaced a total of 2,867 people – 2,476 residents in East Jakarta and 391 in South Jakarta.
“The worst [flooding] was seen at Kemayoran underpass with over 5m high [water],” BNPB spokesperson Agus Wibowo said on his Twitter account on Saturday.
He was referring to an underground tunnel called the Gandhi underpass located on Jalan Kota Baru Bandar Kemayoran in North Jakarta, which has been repeatedly hit by heavy floods since New Year’s Eve, including 2.5m of flooding on January 24 and 3m of inundation on February 2.
After the flooding in January, the Kemayoran Complex Management Center (PPK) has been looking into options to improve the flow of water at the underpass – by improving the system’s water reservoirs and increasing the number of water pumps dedicated for the area. The Kemayoran PPK has also been planning to discuss these options with the central government given that the underpass is under its management, answering to the State Secretariat.
The Jakarta administration has said it has no authority to help anticipate inundation at the Gandhi underpass, although it helped mitigate the flooding by deploying mobile water pumps earlier this month following communication with the central government.
Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, as quoted by kompas.com on Sunday, said the city saw another flood over the weekend as the rainfall intensity reached 244mm per day on Saturday.
Pulomas district in East Jakarta recorded the highest rainfall intensity at 244.2mm per day on Saturday, according to BPBD.
“We have prepared since Friday night because we see the alert status of the Katulampa sluice gate has been raised,” Anies said at an event in Pasar Minggu district, South Jakarta. “We passed the [rainy season] peak on Saturday, so the situation is now under control.”
The cause of Saturday’s flooding was overflow from the 119km Ciliwung River and the 37km Sunter River in North Jakarta, the 19km Buaran river in East Jakarta and the 14.5km Jatikrama river in Bekasi.
Jakarta residents can monitor a map of affected areas through the Jakarta administration’s one-stop service mobile app, called Jakarta Kini ( Jaki).