JAKARTA (Agencies): Flood victims in Jakarta Monday cried for medical help Monday because many of them fell sick in their temporary shelters as some 75 percent of the capital territory is inundated since Friday
A resident of Jelambar subdistrict in West Jakarta said many of 500 residents affected by a 1.5 meter deep flood since Friday needed immediate medical helps.
"Many people fall sick here, but there is no health post in our areas," the resident of Jelambar told Elshinta news radio.
At least 25 people have been killed, with some 340,000 others forced from their homes, most staying in mosques, schools or with friends. Electricity and water supplies were cut in many districts, and floods blocked off scores of roads.
Jakarta's heavily criticized governor said he could not be held responsible for the worst floods to hit the city of 12 million in living memory, saying they were a "natural phenomenon" that occur every five years.
The government has dispatched medical teams on rubber rafts into the worst-hit districts amid fears that disease may spread among residents living in squalid conditions with limited access to clean drinking water.
Residents in one upscale area hired carts and horses to pull them to safety."The government is awful," said Augustina Rusli, who until Monday had stayed on the second floor of her house since Thursday with her 10-month old baby, expecting the floods to be short-lived.
"We have a neighbor who is sick with cancer but no one has come to rescue her," he was quoted by AP news agency as saying.
A health officer also expressed his fear for possible outbreak of diarrhea and dysentery because flood victims have limited access to drinkable water.
"We fear that diarrhea and dysentery may break out, as well as illnesses spread by rats," Rustam Pakaya, from the health ministry's crisis center. "People must be careful not to drink dirty water."
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