Jakarta activates flood warning system

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

People in Jakarta's flood-prone areas will now get a warning to evacuate their houses up to six hours before floods are expected, the city administration says.

The city's new flood warning system came on line Friday. If floods are likely, officials at flood gates in upstream Bogor, Bekasi and Depok will send text message warnings to 13 subdistrict heads living in areas near 13 rivers in the city.

The subdistrict heads will then inform residents of the danger through loudspeakers at mosques and churches in the areas.

It takes about six hours for floodwaters to flow from Depok to Manggarai, East Jakarta, while water takes nine hours to flow downstream from Bogor, the city flood mitigation team said.

The Public Works Ministry will add data to the system by installing 13 telemeters along the city's main rivers to provide a minute-by-minute stream of water-level information.

The administration has prepared 23 temporary shelters, 442 logistics centers, four helicopters and 206 rubber dinghies to evacuate people if worse flooding occurs.

Thousands of police, soldiers, rescue teams and Indonesian Red Cross volunteers will also be mobilized to assist victims.

Governor Sutiyoso said although the administration could not stop the city from flooding, the city was now better prepared to cope with the eventuality.

"We can minimize losses, although we cannot totally prevent floods before the East Flood Canal project is finished," he said Friday after a ceremony to activate the warning system.

The East Flood Canal, which is being expanded to the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, is expected to stop flooding from Bogor and Depok during the rainy season.

The construction of the canal is moving slower than scheduled because the Jakarta Public Works Agency has yet to clear the land at the northern end of the canal.

Jakarta currently relies on a poor drainage system and water pumps to minimize water spill-over from the many garbage-choked rivers in the city.

City crisis center spokesman Heru Djoko said the administration was planning to build a data center to pool all information for the flood warning system.

The center would provide comprehensive information on floods, he said.

"In the absence of an advanced alert system to anticipate floods, we must rely more on integrated information from our conventional tools of communication like phones, walkie-talkies, radio and television," he said.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency is predicting heavy flooding in the city this month.

There have already been floods in the East Jakarta areas of Kampung Melayu and Cawang during Christmas.

The last major floods hit the city in 2002, killing 21 people and displacing as many as 380,000.