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Tornado-stricken Bogor starts recovery
No place like home: Residents of South Bogor district, Bogor, West Java, gather in front of their houses on Friday, a day after a tornado tore through the area and ripped the roofing off them
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o place like home: Residents of South Bogor district, Bogor, West Java, gather in front of their houses on Friday, a day after a tornado tore through the area and ripped the roofing off them.(JP/Theresia Sufa)
The authorities in Bogor, West Java, have begun recovery measures to provide aid and help residents affected by a tornado that hit the Rain City on Thursday, destroying more than 1,000 houses and killing one resident.
The Bogor administration had allocated Rp 6 billion (US$103,412) to fund the recovery, Bogor Mayor Bima Arya said.
“I got a call from the West Java governor, Bapak Ridwan Kamil, who offered to provide aid for the disaster recovery from the provincial budget, but first we have to make an inventory of what the evacuees really need,” he told The Jakarta Post, during a visit to the disaster area on Friday.
The officials prioritize aid for the infants and senior citizens among the roughly 500 residents affected by the tornado and who had to take shelter.
The tornado, which took place at around 3 p.m. on Thursday, followed thunderstorms and dark clouds and destroyed 1,697 houses in Bogor city. Lawang Gintung, Pamoynana, Cipaku and Batu Tulis subdistricts located in South Bogor district suffered the most damage from the disaster.
Laura Purba, 36, a resident of Bogor Park Residence in Pamoyanan said her roof, made from asbestos and light steel, was torn off when the tornado struck. Before the violent whirlwind took place, the thunderstorms had also trembled her house, she recalled.
“I hid with my two toddlers inside the bedroom, where the rooftop was not damaged,” Laura told the Post, adding that heavy rain started to pour afterward.
She and her family immediately evacuated to her neighbor’s house where the roof was still intact.
Kiki, the head of community unit (RW) 8 in Lawang Gintung said that 30 out of 120 families in the neighborhood had to evacuate to a local mosque. Others opted to stay in their relatives’ houses.
Not only did it destroy houses, the tornado also damaged three private vehicles and two public minivans, as well as toppling at least 20 trees across the municipality, officials have reported.
One person, identified as Enny Retno, 46, was killed after a tree fell onto her car when she was driving past Lawang Gintung area in South Bogor. National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Thursday that Eni was driving her car to pick up her child from school when the tornado hit and toppled a tree nearby. The tree fell onto her car, directly onto the driver’s seat.
Bogor Police chief Sr. Comr. Ulung Sampurna Jaya said in a statement on Friday that other damage had also occurred in South Bogor and East Bogor subdistricts.
At least 20 trees were toppled in three villages, causing damage to three private cars and two public minivans.
Joint local authorities have also erected shelters and soup kitchens, as well as cleaning the affected areas of debris and fallen trees. They also continued to assess the damage and needs of affected residents.
Bima called for people to stay alert and exercise caution when driving in heavy rain and to avoid parking below trees.
Tornadoes are a common natural phenomenon during the transition period from the dry season to the rainy season or vice versa, Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) spokesperson Hary Djatmiko said.
Tornadoes commonly occur when there is an extreme shift from very hot weather to heavy rain in a short period of time.
“If there are one to three days with no rain in the transition season or in the rainy season, there is a possibility that the next rain will be heavy and windy,” Hary said. He added that the wind in that kind of rain could be a strong whirlwind classified as a tornado.
A strong tornado only happens very briefly, lasting less than 10 minutes, and moves in a straight line covering an area of five to 10 kilometers.
However, he added that tornados could not yet be predicted very far in advance.
“They can only be predicted 30 minutes to 1 hour before the incident, and only by detecting the signs with less than 50 percent accuracy,” he said, adding that there was little chance that a tornado could happen again in the exact same spot. (sau)
