Two villages flooded, displacing 241 families, when a dam broke in Demak regency, Central Java, on Tuesday, and hundreds of fishermen were landlocked in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, as tropical storm Charlotte continued to churn up havoc on its way up from Australia.

The families in the two villages in Karangawen district evacuated when their homes became inundated with flood water 40 centimeters to 1 meter in height after the Cabean River dam overflowed.

No fatalities were reported, but losses from damaged property and ruined crops were estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of rupiah.

Mahmud Mugiono, a resident of one of the villages, said the river backed up by the dam had swelled by 25 meters, eventually breaching the dam in five places.

The flood also disrupted the northern railway line linking Semarang, Central Java, and Surabaya, East Java. Parts of the railway tracks had shifted in a section 21 kilometers east of Semarang. trains were delayed for two hours. The traffic was diverted to the central route through Gambringan, Gundih and Brumbung stations," said Warsono, a spokesman for state railway operator PT KAI's Semarang Operational Region.

Repair work had begun by early Tuesday. diversion only caused a slight altercation," said Dedi Kusmadjadi, the section head for roads, rail tracks and bridges in the region.

"But the problem is the alternative route *which the trains are being diverted to* has a slower speed limit of 40 kilometers per hour compared to 60 kilometers per hour for the main northern route."

Fishermen in Kupang, meanwhile, chose not to risk leaving port amid reports tropical storm Charlotte, which is on a north-west vector heading from Australia, would pass by the coast, where waves were already reported to be up to 3 meters in height. do not want to take any risks because our vessels are not equipped with proper navigational devices," Andi Nurlali, a fisherman, said.

"It is better to stay in port than be smashed by big waves."

Head of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency's Lasiana station in Kupang, Purwanto, said that the storm was currently passing through Carpentaria Bay, Australia. "The impact will be slight in East Nusa Tenggara, but not in Flores," he said. State-owned Indonesian Ferry crossing company continued plowing its routes, according to Arnoldus Yansen, the company's operational manager for Kupang.

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