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span class="caption">Best foot forward: Schoolgirls wade through a flooded road in Petogogan, South Jakarta, on Monday after the Krukut River overflowed its banks. The city health agency is anticipating outbreaks of sanitary-related diseases during and after floods. JP/P.J. Leo What is commonly left after the flood water recedes? Most Jakartans living in flood-prone areas will probably answer mud or garbage.

On Monday, residents of Kampung Pulo in East Jakarta were busy moping the house and throwing out mud to the inundated alley as water started to recede after a week.

“The mud is this deep,” said Yuni, a resident, lifting up her right foot from calf-height flood water and pointing her ankle.

“It takes all day to brush off all the mud from the floor and the wall and then it takes hours for the floods to return and bring it all back.”

Kampung Pulo, which is situated by the Ciliwung River, is one of several flood-prone areas in the capital that receives the runoff from more elevated areas such as Bogor and Depok, West Java. Flood-water in the area hit a two-meter high several times in November alone, making many residents take to the second floor of their homes.

For residents in Kedoya, West Jakarta, the flood on Saturday brought an unexpected guest — a 3-meter long python.

“We tried to catch the snake before it inflicted any harm. We needed around 10 men to hold it,” Mawardi, 45, one of the residents, said as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

The reticulated python, like other types of python, is nonvenomous. Although the python — which can grow up to six-meters in length — is normally not considered dangerous to humans, it is powerful enough to kill an adult human.

The pythons usually live by the river, which explains its preternatural visit to the neighborhood that is often inundated by water from the overflowing Pesanggrahan River during the rainy season.

“There are several pythons in the Pesanggrahan River and the snake might have been flushed out of its lair,” Samsudin, 50, another resident, explained.

Mawardi said that someone was interested in keeping the snake, and paid one of the residents Rp 200,000 (US$20.83) to pet the extraordinary guest.

What haunts the residents most is the threat of an outbreak of sanitary-related diseases. According to Health Agency chief Dien Emmawati, the most common diseases attributed to floods are skin infection, influenza and muscle aches.

Dien said that agency health posts, which have been established in each of 62 flood-prone areas throughout Jakarta, had received 1,394 visits related to the diseases, with six patients referred to hospitals.

According to her, mosquito-borne viral diseases such as dengue and chikunguya fever, rat-borne leptospirosis and diarrhea threatened residents.

“The disease occurs as people, most of who refused to be evacuated, have contact with floodwater that contains various bacteria from sewers and rivers,” Dien explained.

“Moreover, after the flood is gone, the water consumed by people is often contaminated, which can lead to diarrhea. Aedes mosquitos that transmit chikunguya and dengue fever are also attracted to the water during such times,” she added.

Dien said that besides establishing posts, each with four medical technicians on standby, the agency would also carry out preventive measures such as fumigation to kill mosquito larvae and to disseminate information regarding the diseases.

“Wash your hands and feet often, never leave water inundated, make sure to perfectly boil drinking water and always put on footwear as it will prevent you from being contaminated by leptospirosis bacteria,” Dien said.

Leptospirosis is spread through the urine of rats whose habitat is often destroyed by the flood water and can infect anyone with open wounds who comes into contact with contaminated water or garbage or anyone who swallows contaminated food or water.

Symptoms of leptospirosis are similar to those of dengue fever, such as fever with initial shivers, severe headache, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, change in the color of skin and the whites of the eyes, muscle pain mostly in the calf area, diarrhea and a skin rash. (aml)