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fter five months of drought in Flores, the water crisis has spread to the island’s major travel hub, Labuan Bajo.

The West Manggarai regency capital, which is the gateway to world-famous Komodo island, has three freshwater springs, but their output is increasingly unable to meet residents’ needs, according to West Manggarai Regent Agustinus Ch. Dulla.

He brought up the issue at the Destination Management Organization Conference at the Hotel Jayakarta in Labuan Bajo on Wednesday.

Dulla said roadwork and infrastructure restoration from Labuan Bajo to the resort area would continue, but the city’s residents faced a severe clean water crisis.

With Labuan Bajo being projected as a future tourist hot spot, the regency’s administration, according to the regent, has paid more attention to the issue and made clean water management a top priority.

Education Observation Social Foundation leader Pastor Marcelinus Agot SVD said the long drought this year was more severe than the one two years ago.

He said it still would rain every month during the previous drought, but it had not rained in Labuan Bajo in the past five months, and residents faced difficulties in getting clean water. “Residents in Labuan Bajo have faced difficulties in obtaining water due to the long drought.”

Labuan Bajo resident Ludgerius Minus told the The Jakarta Post that to overcome the water shortage the residents were buying water for Rp 5,000 (57 US cents) per 20 liters.

Ludgerius added that the water crisis in Labuan Bajo was due to the lack of good clean water management and clear regulations between residents living in the upstream and downstream areas in Labuan Bajo.

People living in the upper reaches do not feel they own the water flowing from upstream, he said.

“I hope the government will pay attention to the clean water crisis in Labuan Bajo, because the city is visited by many foreign and domestic tourists,” he said.

In Riau, the prolonged drought has affected thousands of hectares of paddy fields, and at least 2,600 hectares faced harvest failure.

Riau Agriculture Office horticulture and food crop division head Basirman said crop failure had occurred in almost every regency and mayoralty in the province. The worst-affected regencies are Kampar, Kuantan Sengingi and Indragiri Hilir.

“Rain has apparently fallen in a number of areas, but the drought has already caused crops to die,” he said on Thursday.

“The dry season this time has also shifted the planting season from July to mid September,” added Basirman.

Basirman said his office had submitted a proposal to the Agricultural Ministry to compensate affected farmers. “Or at least provide assistance to replace seedlings. Each hectare of rice fields needs 25 kilograms of seedlings,” he said.

Kampar was listed as the hardest hit regency, as nearly half of its 1,728 hectares of rice fields were affected by drought.