After String of Disasters, Indonesians Ask: Why Us?

By SETH MYDANS, The New York Times

Published: February 11, 2007

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 9 — Too many shopping malls in the city. Too many squatters on the riverbanks. Too many villas on the southern hillsides. Or a curse hovering over the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Filthy water still fills much of the city a week after the start of the worst flood in decades, draining slowly away during dry spells, then topped up again by new rain storms. Officials say 80 people have now died, mostly by drowning and electrocution.

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