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City to repurpose inundated cemetery in Kapuk
Two-gun salute: Children play with air rifles near the inundated and trash-covered Kapuk Teko cemetery in Kapuk, West Jakarta, last month
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Two-gun salute: Children play with air rifles near the inundated and trash-covered Kapuk Teko cemetery in Kapuk, West Jakarta, last month. The city plans to clean up, relocate and redevelop the cemetery, which has been under water for years. (JP/P.J. Leo) (JP/P.J. Leo)
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span class="inline inline-none">Two-gun salute: Children play with air rifles near the inundated and trash-covered Kapuk Teko cemetery in Kapuk, West Jakarta, last month. The city plans to clean up, relocate and redevelop the cemetery, which has been under water for years. (JP/P.J. Leo)
The city administration will redevelop the Teko Cemetery in Kapuk, West Jakarta, an area that has been continuously flooded for almost 10 years. The administration plans to relocate bodies buried in the cemetery to another cemetery in West Jakarta.
According to Parks and Cemetery Agency head Nandar Sunandar, the cemetery was cleaned every year, but the floodwater always returned.
He added that local residents frequently littered into the already-inundated cemetery, exacerbating the problem.
The adjoining neighborhood also sits underwater, forcing many residents to construct houses atop used oil drums.
'This year, we will not only drain the floodwaters, but we will also clean and redevelop the area to become a useful place for the residents,' Nandar told The Jakarta Post, adding that his agency had not yet determined what the area would be used for.
'We might develop the area into a park, but we must discuss the matter with residents first,' he said.
Nandar added that the parks and cemetery agency would cooperate with both the city's Sanitation Agency and its Public Works agency to clean up and redevelop the area.
He said that the parks agency was currently researching the family histories of buried persons so that it could request permission from living relatives to relocate the bodies, which would be then be exhumed and reburied at the Tegal Alur Cemetery in West Jakarta.
'There are over 3,000 graves in Teko Cemetery. It will take a long time to create a list of those buried there. But hopefully, we will have all the data by Aug. 4 so that we can proceed quickly with redevelopment,' he said.
According to cemetery keeper Nurahman, relatives of over 200 people buried in the cemetery visited the office each day.
'They're very supportive. They want their relatives to have a decent resting place where it is not always flooded with water and waste,' Nurahman told the Post recently.
Nurahman, who has been cemetery keeper for over 30 years, said the area had been continuously flooded since 1996.
'The cemetery's been hit by floods for a long time, but in 1996, the floodwaters never went away,' he said.
Nurahman blamed the endless flooding on poorly managed development and the residents' habit of littering.
'If the waterway was well-planned, the floods would recede quickly, but the problem is also complicated by residents, who think of the cemetery as an area for waste disposal,' he said.
He added that a sign had been installed beside the cemetery that asked residents to not throw away garbage in the cemetery, but that residents had chosen to ignore the sign.
'Hopefully residents will throw their garbage away properly once the cemetery has been cleaned up and [the area] redeveloped,' Nurahman said. (dwa)
