Jakarta residents should be getting used to complete gridlock after heavy rains, with a couple of hours of rain Monday bringing traffic to another near-complete standstill.

The heavy rain, that began just a few hours past noon and drenched the whole city, created large puddles on the city's main thoroughfares, effectively reducing the number of lanes motorists could use.

In South Jakarta, the Jakarta Police's Traffic Management Center reported 30-centimeter-deep puddles in front of Atma Jaya University near the Semanggi junction; at the Balai Kartini building on Jl. Gatot Subroto; near the Kuningan-Warung Buncit intersection; and at the Gelael supermarket on Jl. Gatot Subroto near the Pancoran intersection.

The submerged streets, combined with rush-hour traffic, caused massive jams across the city. According to The Jakarta Post's observation, at around 5 p.m., a car ride from Jl. Dr. Satrio to the Slipi junction, which normally takes between 5 and 10 minutes, took an hour.

In Central Jakarta, the streets were flooded inundated in front of the German Embassy on Jl. Thamrin; at the Manggala Wanabhakti building on Jl. Tentara Pelajar; and in front of the Sarinah department store on Jl. Wahid Hasyim.

In East Jakarta, the Jl. Pramuka-Jl. Matraman intersection was flooded in ankle-deep rainwater, as was Jl. Kebon Nanas. The street in front of the Ibis Hotel in West Jakarta was also inundated.

As of 6 p.m., traffic, particularly heading toward Jl. Gatot Subroto and the inner city toll road, was still moving at a crawl.

"The cause of the traffic jam is still the same: Heavy traffic volume and heavy rains," said TMC officer-in-charge Adj. Comr. Mujiono.

At some spots, including Sarinah, the rain caused knee-high flooding, inundating hundreds of parked motorcycles, kompas.com reported.

Several cars and motorcycles were reported to have stalled in deep puddles throughout the city.

It is a condition seen often during heavy rains in Jakarta. The main cause, according to an official at the Jakarta Public Works Agency, is the city's severely clogged sewer system and waterways, which in turn clogs micro-drains across the city, hampering water runoff and leaving the streets severely inundated.

Micro-drains are 1- to 5-meter-long drainage pipes that act as the city's major channels of waste water. The accumulation of garbage in these grains has reduced their capacity to channel water to between 50 and 70 percent.

The garbage only worsens the possibility of almost total gridlock during heavy rains, with Jakarta Public Works Agency head Budi Widiantoro admitting the city's sewer system cannot adequately handle any protracted heavy rainfall, even without clogged drains.

The Meteorological, Geophysics and Climatology Agency (BMKG) has predicted at least three more days of heavy rain in the city.

Hari Tirto, head of the BMKG information division, said rains with intensities of between 5 and 20 millimeters per hour could still pour down on the city over the next three days.

He said such rains could also occur in the satellite cities of Bogor, Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok, adding that flooding might occur if rain continued to fall in these areas at the same time as in Jakarta.

"So Jakarta residents must be very careful during this kind of weather," Hari said Monday as quoted by the city's official news site, beritajakarta.com.

Apart from the flooded streets, however, the Jakarta Crisis Center reported the water levels in all waterways in Jakarta remained below critical levels.

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