Back to business: Students of Muhammadiyah University Jakarta carry books that can be salvaged to a new room at the campus Monday. The flash flood from the Situ Gintung dam burst two weeks ago destroyed the campus library, along with thousands of books and academic papers. JP/P.J. Leo

Muhamadiyah University Jakarta (UMJ), badly hit by the Situ Gintung dam burst, resumed activities Monday after flood victims were relocated to temporary homes at Wisma Kerta Mukti.

“We’ve resume campus activities as of today, although we’re still repairing damaged facilities,” Rahmat Salam, dean of UMJ’s School of Social and Political Sciences, told The Jakarta Post at Wisma Kerta Mukti in Ciputat, Tangerang.

“We need books for our library destroyed by the flood. We welcome anyone who wants to donate books.”

He added UMJ had suffered losses of Rp 13 billion from the flood.

South Tangerang acting mayor M. Sholeh said Monday the 30-strong search and rescue team would continue looking for bodies along the Pesangrahan River.

“We’ll keep searching upon requests filed by survivors, with reports of at least 14 people still missing from the incident,” he said.

Municipality records show 1,098 people from 295 families lived in the area struck by the flood.

“After the disaster, 101 people were found dead, 983 others survived, and 14 more are yet to be found,” Sholeh said.

He added 186 people from 52 families had been relocated from the temporary shelter at UMJ to Wisma Kerta Mukti; another 107 families are staying in rented homes arranged by the administration, while the rest were sheltering around the disaster site, awaiting relocation to Wisma Kerta Mukti II now under construction.

“The construction work of temporary homes [at Wisma Kerta Mukti II] will likely be completed by Friday, and the remaining victims can move in on Saturday,” he said.

Sholeh added the administration had also prepared special schools for students taking their final exams next week.

“We’ll provide special buses to take the students from the temporary shelter to the schools,” he said.

On Monday, Banten Governor Ratu Atut Chosiah handed out cash aid to the victims.

“We love you all and we do our best to help. So there is no need to worry,” she said.

She added the administration had allocated Rp 5 million each for a total of 400 families hit by the disaster.

“Flood survivors are allowed to live in the temporary homes as long as they want,” she said.

Atut said the National Land Agency (BPN) would begin collecting data on April 14 from those who had lost their property title deeds.

“The agency will make new ones for you, free of charge,” she said.

UMJ’s Rahmat Salam, also the coordinator for the main disaster post, said the National Archive would send a team to help recover thousands of books and academic papers damaged in the flood, by employing its previous experience of restoring damaged documents after the 2004 Aceh tsunami.

“The team will assist us restore the damaged documents with special equipment they used in Aceh after the tsunami,” Rahmat told vivanews.com.

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