Widespread flooding continues to affect Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, over the weekend, with the number of people forced to leave their homes jumping from less than 5,000 on Saturday 18 January 2014 to more than 30,000 on Sunday after heavy rain fell overnight.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho was quoted on Sunday as saying that the floods had not yet reached the same level as last year, when the worst in flooding five years left downtown commercial districts inundated, with over 50,000 people displaced.
Yulian Candra, a resident of west Jakarta, told news website Detik on Sunday: “Yesterday the water was knee deep in my house, there has also been a power cut for the past two days.”
By early Monday morning, however, the number of people evacuated had again doubled to almost 64,000, according to a report by Jakarta’s Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) spokesman Bambang Surya Putra, who was quoted as saying that, by 6am on Monday, 63,958 people had been evacuated to 293 locations in Jakarta.
Most of the displaced households evacuated following the Saturday night rain were in the south and west of the city, with floodwaters reaching up to three metres (10 ft) in some places. However, Putra reported that about 20,228 people were later evacuated from East Jakarta where the water levels reached between 20cm (8in) and 2m (6 ft).
Bringing Food,to the local UPC Church,trapped in the flood,the road ends had to walk through flood water,Jakarta Indo pic.twitter.com/9qDphScuTR
— Stephen Sparks (@indosparks) January 20, 2014
Disaster agency official Tri Budiarto warned that the number of evacuees may rise in the coming days as more rain was expected. He added that five people had been killed in the past week due to flooding, having died either by drowning or being electrocuted.
BPBD also reported on Monday morning that 10,530 residents from 48 villages and 27 districts surrounding the capital had been displaced and were evacuated to 97 emergency areas.
Sources: NDTV; Jakarta post
