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Residents struggle amid long dry season
Residents in several regions across the archipelago are struggling with water scarcity in the midst of a long dry season, which is expected to last for the next several months
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esidents in several regions across the archipelago are struggling with water scarcity in the midst of a long dry season, which is expected to last for the next several months.
In Gunungkidul regency, Yogyakarta, more than 100,000 residents in 70 villages have been experiencing water shortages for the past couple of months. Some of them, especially those living in the southern part of the drought-prone regency, have even had to sell their belongings to buy clean water.
'We have started selling our livestock. Yesterday, I sold my chickens to buy water,' Pardiyem, who lives in Girimulyo village, Panggang district, said on Tuesday.
Pardiyem said that she had spent almost Rp 300,000 (US$22) to buy two tanks of water, each with a capacity of 5,000 liters.
A similar water crisis is also taking place in several other districts, including Tepus and Gedangsari.
'Yesterday, we paid Rp 120,000 for a 5,000-liter tank of water, but only because we live not too far from the water source,' said Senen, who lives in Hargosari sub-district in Tepus.
Last month, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) warned that the dry season this year could last longer than that of previous years due to the weather phenomenon known as El Nino.
While the dry season in Indonesia normally takes place between April and September, the agency is predicting that the El Nino effect will stretch it out until November, and affect several regions, including South Sumatra, Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).
Gunungkidul Manpower and Transmigration Agency head Dwi Warno Widinugroho said that the local administration had allocated Rp 600 million this year to help provide clean water for residents in the regency whose area was surrounded by limestone hills and who had no access to surface water. He said, however, that the water provision was not yet needed as the current drought had just entered its early phase.
Meanwhile, the regent of NTT's Timor Tengah Selatan regency, Paul Mella, recently confirmed that more than 12,000 residents in five villages in the Kualin and South Amanuban districts were forced to consume putak, a Palmyra palm tree-based dish, following harvest failures caused by a long dry spells in the region that started earlier this year.
'We don't have any option. If we don't eat it, we will starve and die,' said Yohanes Loase, a Kualin resident.
