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fter a long dry season, the first floods of the rainy season hit Jakarta on Monday, submerging a number of densely populated areas in the capital, including Rawajati in South Jakarta and Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta.

'€œThere was no rain at all on Sunday. Yet, in the evening, I received a warning that my house would be inundated by floodwater,'€ said Rawajati resident Wakiah, 48, while joining her neighbors to clean the road in front of their houses from mud. '€œWell, I am used to it, so I don'€™t feel afraid or panic.'€

Wakiah said that after the warning, her family immediately put things like clothes and the television on the second floor of her relative'€™s house next door.

Several neighborhoods near rivers in Jakarta are often affected by flooding during the rainy season by water coming from the upstream area of Bogor, West Java. On Sunday and Monday, Jakarta was relatively dry but heavy rains poured down in Bogor.

Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) spokesperson Bambang Surya Putra said that on Sunday evening, the officials put Jakarta on alert because water levels continued to rise at Bogor'€™s Katulampa sluice gate, which is the vital benchmark of possible flooding in Jakarta.

According to him, the water rose to 210 centimeters overnight following heavy rain in Bogor and as a result, nine areas along the Ciliwung river were inundated. The areas were Cililitan, Kampung Melayu, Bidara Cina, Cawang, Buaran Tengah, Kampung Gedong '€” all in East Jakarta, as well as Pasar Minggu, Rawa Jati and Kebon Baru in South Jakarta.

In Rawajati, the water level reached 1.5 meters, Wakiah said, while showing the high water mark on her neighbor'€™s wall. The flooding was still far less severe than that seen in 2013 she added, in which the water level reached 3 meters.

Nurhayati from Kampung Pulo, Kampung Melayu, also said that Monday'€™s water level was not as high as 2013, when flooding almost submerged her two-story house.

She said the water started flooding her house at around 2 a.m. and kept rising until it reached almost two meters '€” or as high as the first floor of most houses in the neighborhood.

Like Wakiah, she said that her family was used to flooding and did not panic after receiving the flood alert on Sunday evening via mobile phone messages and an announcement from the nearest mosque.

She went on to say that her family and others in the neighborhood started to move important belongings to the second floor, as well as moving vehicles to the nearest parking lots outside the flood risk area.

She added that they also saved some water and bought candles to anticipate a blackout.

As the floods had already come, her family activities '€” such as cooking and washing clothes '€” would be concentrated on the second floor until 2016, she added.

'€œWe will keep our belongings on the second floor until the rainy season ends in 2016. We never know when the floods will come again,'€ Nurhayati said in front of her house, where a number of cockroaches crawled over the front wall as floodwaters still covered the ground.

Jakarta Water Management Agency head Tri Djoko Sri Margianto claimed the high level of solid waste in the Ciliwung river was one of the main causes of the flooding. He said waste had clogged several areas of the river and hampered the flow of water.

According to him, the Kalibata area in South Jakarta was an example of how a modern system of garbage dredging needed to be applied.

'€œJust look under Kalibata Bridge, there is a lot of waste stuck in the river. Kalibata should have a garbage dredging system like the one in Manggarai [South Jakarta],'€ he said.

He explained that the Ciliwung river normalization process would be completed in December 2016 and that he was upbeat that flooding would be reduced once the project was finished.

Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said sheet piles used by his administration had successfully protected a number of flood-prone areas.

'€œHowever, there are also places like Kampung Pulo that are yet to be covered by sheet pile. Therefore, those areas are still inundated by floodwater,'€ he continued. (agn)
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