Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Rescuers and volunteers on Sunday struggled to reach nearly 190,000 Indonesians left homeless by devastating floods sparked by heavy rains in and around Jakarta, as the death toll rose to seven.
Authorities put the capital on high alert, with more rain forecast for Sunday, as police deployed 7,000 extra personnel to assist with evacuation efforts across the city, where water levels reached rooftops in some areas.
"The number of our personnel is enough, but what we are lacking are rubber boats for the evacuation of residents," said police spokesman Untung Yoga Ana.
As of late Saturday, the death toll was at seven in the Jakarta area, according to an official from the National Disaster Mitigation Coordinating Agency, quoted by the state Antara news agency.
The official, Sunardi, also said that the number of refugees forced to leave their homes due to the rainy-season floods, was now at nearly 190,000, nearly double the 106,095 homeless people registered as of early Saturday.
Local television stations showed footage of inundated areas around the capital, mainly along the Ciliwung, Pesangrahan and Krukut rivers, with people shown being evacuated from their roofs or the second floors of their homes.
A key flood gate in East Jakarta could no longer block water flowing in from outside the city, staff there said, causing the city's main canal to burst its banks.
There was no immediate estimate of the number of houses and families that needed to be evacuated.
Members of the Indonesian Red Cross and other volunteers were delivering food to the thousands of people stranded in their flooded homes or sheltering on roadsides.
"With so many points that need to be served, a rotation has to be made," police spokesman Ana said, saying that police had built more than 200 rafts to reinforce the evacuation efforts, making up for the shortage of rubber boats.
Mosques, schools and other public buildings in dry areas across the city were being used as makeshift shelters for the homeless, television reports showed.
The floods have forced the closure of several main roads across Jakarta, while at least two hospitals had to move patients to upper floors.
The state electricity company had to cut power to most inundated areas, adding to the misery of people who opted to stay in their flooded homes. At least 5,000 people were without telephone service.
The meteorology agency warned of more rains to come later Sunday, and that heavy rains were still falling in hilly regions in the south, further heightening threats of more floods.
Residents of Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta -- a vast residential and commercial area inundated in 2002, in floods that killed 40 people -- said the latest disaster was far worse.
"Last time, the water was only knee deep but yesterday, it had already reached my midriff when I left," 48-year-old Brahmanta, who managed to leave his two-storey house with his car when water levels were still low, told AFP.
"I could stay on the second floor of the house, but there is no food, no electricity, no clean water, and the toilets cannot flush," Brahmanta said.
Old Batavia, the former colonial port under the Dutch from where Jakarta has expanded, was built on marshland and some areas of the capital are below sea level.
No comments:
Post a Comment