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Southeast Sulawesi villages inundated as dam overflows

Flash floods hit three villages in East Kabaena district, Bombana regency, Southeast Sulawesi, on Tuesday as a dam belonging to a nickel mining company in the region overflowed

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb (The Jakarta Post)
Kendari/Padang
Wed, February 17, 2016

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Southeast Sulawesi villages inundated as dam overflows

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lash floods hit three villages in East Kabaena district, Bombana regency, Southeast Sulawesi, on Tuesday as a dam belonging to a nickel mining company in the region overflowed.

The flood inundated hundreds of houses and a number of public facilities in Tapuhaka, Dongkala and Lambale.

'€œAlmost all the houses and schools in Tapuhaka, Dongkala and Lambale are inundated by floodwaters 50 centimeters to a meter deep,'€ East Kabaena SMA I senior high school teacher Aryanti Musnah said over the phone on Tuesday.

Aryanti said heavy rain had poured throughout the region the whole night until Tuesday morning. '€œBut teaching and learning has continued as usual because we are having mid-semester examinations,'€ Aryanti said as quoted by Antara.

East Kabaena district head Ahnan said the flash floods were also caused by drainage facilities and culverts in residential areas that did not work effectively.

'€œThe culverts are clogged. The pipeline is very small and does not work. As a result there is flooding,'€ Ahnan said, adding that no fatalities were reported from the incident but financial losses were estimated to reach hundreds of millions of rupiah.

Representatives from the district administration, he said, would soon visit the affected regions to assess the condition of the residents and make an inventory of material losses.

Meanwhile in West Sumatra, after struggling for over a week to scrape together enough food on their own, some 4,000 residents of five villages in Nagari Muaro Sungai Lolo, South Mapat Tunggul district, Pasaman regency, finally received relief as aid from the government reached them.

South Mapat Tunggul district administration secretary Juliater Ginting said that over 20 landslides had occurred along the road to the five affected villages and an 18-meter-long concrete bridge was also damaged. To clear the debris, heavy equipment has been deployed.

'€œSince yesterday afternoon motorcycles can already pass through two villages and another village can be reached by motorboats. So far, the remaining two villages can only be reached up to the last landslide,'€ Juliater told The Jakarta Post via phone on Tuesday.

The floods that hit West Sumatra on Sunday and Monday last week covered almost 1,000 houses in the five villages with water over 1.5 meters deep and people sought refuge in taller buildings such as schools and community health centers.

The flood also severely damaged two houses and moderately damaged four others. Almost all affected people lost some of their possessions, and remained homeless for several days.

He also expressed worries about the fate of people in the area over the next three months as 42 hectares of rice fields had just been planted.

'€œWe really hope there will be more aid for them,'€ Juliater said.

The West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) has said it can not yet release information about the floods and landslides or the financial losses caused by the extreme weather as the BPBD in the affected regencies and cities had not yet filed reports on the matter to the provincial BPBD office.

The floods and landslides affected ten regencies and cities in West Sumatra, with Pasaman, Lima Puluh Kota and South Solok the worst-hit regencies.

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