(source: Reuter)

Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, has been hit by some of the worst flood in years. Some areas are said to be submerged 4 meters under water. About 200,000 thousands are currently homeless, with 20 found dead; and the numbers are rising.

The rain has finally stopped after pouring in for days, giving chance for rescue workers to evacuate people faster. This is in anticipation of more rain.

“Jakarta is geographically not qualified to be the capital city, but this is the reality,” Sutiyoso, Jakarta’s governor, said in an interview on Metro TV. “We can’t afford to move the capital city somewhere else.”
Sutiyoso blamed deforestation south of Jakarta, which obliterated the water catchment area. However, when the rain fell just in Jakarta alone, it still floods. Sutiyoso was under heavy fire when similar flood happened five years ago, and the flood this time proved that he hasn’t accomplish anything to stop it from happening again.

There was plan to build a new flood canal on 1970, in addition to the current one built by the Dutch on 1930; but it was never completed. Talks are starting again now to restart the project. It’s estimated that it will cost around $440 million.

People are concerned that the flood will bring new outbreak. With dengue fever already in rise, additional outbreaks will seriously burden already overloaded medical facilities.

Parts of Jakarta has experienced various loss of services - electricity, clean water, telephone & mobile phone service, etc. The flood is so bad it reached places which never experienced it before.
Internet access also has been affected, with Telkom (one of the biggest Internet Service Provider) Internet giving out sluggish performance. Telkom’s datacenter, which hosts the Indonesian President’s website, was also affected when the electricity went out and the generators can’t be started because it’s put in the basement, which was already submerged under water.

Below is list of important contact details / source of information, courtesy of Indonesia News Blog :

Information on flood situation 021-382-2011,

Crisis Centers
Flood Post Central Jakarta 021-3843066
Flood Post East Jakarta 021-48702443
Flood Post North Jakarta 021-43930152, 43934752
Flood Post South Jakarta 021-72786646, 72786657
Flood Post West Jakarta 021-5821765, 5821725

Jakarta Flood Center 021-3822212, 3823113, 3500000
Fax. 021-3823412, 3862022, SMS.0811920203

Departments
Public Works (Pekerjaan umum): 021-384 3250
Health Department: 021-34835118
Social Works Services: 021-426 4675
Electricity Board: 123
Water Board: 021-5704250
Police hotline: 112
Fire Hotline: 113
Ambulance: 118
Phone complaints 147
Phone information 108
SAR Jakarta 550-1111

Red Cross
PMI (Indonesian red Cross) 390-6666; 390-9259; 3192-7711, 7992325

Toll road information:
Cawang - Gatot Subroto - Soekarno-Hatta Airport; Pluit Baru - Soekarno-Hatta Airport: (021) 80 11 735
Cawang - Tanjung Priok - Pluit Baru: (021) 651 83 50
Kampung Rambutan - Pondok Pinang (Jakarta Outer Ring Road): (021) 920 1111
Cikampek toll-road: (021) 822 6666
Jagorawi toll-road: (021) 91 77777
Jakarta - Tangerang toll-road: (021) 9199999
Tangerang - Merak toll-road: (0254) 20 7878

Radio news:
Radio Elshinta (90.00FM),
Radio Suara Metro (91.1FM),
Radio Sonora (92.00FM);
Radio MSTRI (Media Suara Trisakti): 104.20 FM

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 18:52 and is filed under In English, Sosial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.