Students' schooling hurt after floods

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 09/04/2007 2:14 PM

Nurni Sulaiman, The Jakarta Post, Balikpapan

At least 1,443 elementary school students were unable to attend school Monday after major flooding and landslides hit Gunung Sari Ilir village in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, over the weekend.

State elementary schools SDN 003 and SDN 006 have been shut due to damage from the landslides.

Suharti R, principal of SDN 003, where there are 525 pupils, said that the 17 ground-floor classrooms usually used by first-to fourth-grade students were unusable.

""The available classrooms are located on the second floor for fifth- and sixth-grade students,"" Suharti said, adding that the fifth- and sixth-grade students would be asked to come back to school on Wednesday or Thursday.

Mud on the wall surrounding the school shows that the waters reached a depth of one meter during the flooding. The school's parking lot and playground are still inundated.

At SDN 006, which has 918 pupils, teachers and students were busy drying books recovered from the mud.

Students from nearby state junior high school SMPN 12 were helping dry the books, which they spread through classrooms and outside in dry areas. ""We came here to express our sympathy,"" said Nadya Alfiniah, one of the students.

Siti Fatimah, principal of SDN 006, said that her students would be invited to start attending school again possibly after Wednesday.

Meanwhile, heavy rains around Balikpapan early on Wednesday morning further worsened landslides along Jl. Piere Tendean at Gunung Pasir area.

The landslide initially covered 25 meters of the road and then expanded to 50 meters on Monday.

In order to prevent the situation from getting worse, Balikpapan Deputy Mayor Rizal Effendi said that he had ordered reconstruction to start as soon as possible. ""We will use inserted concrete poles. The work will be conducted as soon as possible to help prevent further damage,"" Rizal said.

A temporary bridge was originally designed for the damaged part of the road, although this has now been delayed due to the new damage.

Sri Sutantinah, head of the Balikpapan Public Works Office, said that the Balikpapan city administration would relocate houses near the landslide areas.

At least 79 houses were heavily damaged, and 471 residents were displaced, Sri said.

Balikpapan Mayor Imdaad Hamid said that his administration would stop issuing building permits for the incident sites. ""We will change the affected locations into water catchment areas,"" he added.

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