Governor strives to prevent major flooding in Jakarta

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said Monday that various efforts will be conducted to prevent any major flooding from inundating the capital city of Jakarta.

He made the statement in response to a prediction by the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) that Jakarta would likely be hit by a major flooding by the end of this year.

BMKG’s prediction was based on the drastic change from the annually dry season into the rainy season for the whole year.

“I was born not as a pessimist. We have appointed and are obliged to prevent the prediction from becoming a reality,” Fauzi said in Jakarta as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Fauzi said that as a Jakarta governor coming from the local Betawi ethnicity he would not allowed Jakarta as his hometown to be submerged. He also urged Jakarta residents to participate in preventing the major flooding through various preventive measures.

BMKG’s air quality and climate change center Edvin Aldrian said earlier that an extreme weather will make the capital city to be saturated. The earth will no longer be capable of absorbing the high level of rain falls, while nearby rivers cannot discharge water into the sea as the sea water will have a higher volume of water.

Edvin predicted that incessant rains combined with the higher level of sea water will cause Jakarta to be submerged, even though the flooding will not be as big as the one in 2007.