TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Greater Jakarta prepares for rainy season
Change Size
A worker clears garbage using a floor squeegee taped to a stick at the Manggarai sluice gate, South Jakarta, on Monday. The increasing volume of water in the Ciliwung River has caused garbage to pile up at the gate. (The Jakarta Post/Seto Wardhana)
A
s downpours start hitting Greater Jakarta after a prolonged dry season, regional administrations and officials in the capital and neighboring cities are scrambling to prepare for the rainy season.
In Bogor, West Java, for instance, the city administration recently activated the Ciliwung task force, a team designated to clean up the Ciliwung River in anticipation of possible floods.
Bogor Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto said that the river, which flows 120 kilometers from Bogor through Jakarta to the ocean, needed to be cleared of trash to avoid clogging during the rainy season.
“If the Ciliwung River starts clogging up, the risk of floods and landslides around the river will rise,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.
Bima said the task force ─ comprising members of the Indonesian Military (TNI), the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), Bogor Environment Agency and the Ciliwung Care community ─ would be more active in cleaning up the river in the upcoming months when the rainy season had already started.
In addition, Bima said the Bogor administration would dump the trash collected in the city at Galuga landfill more frequently in preparation for the rainy season.
“The city produces 600 tons of trash a day but not all of it is disposed at Galuga landfill as some of the plastic trash is stored in waste banks around the city,” he said.
Meanwhile, the North Jakarta Water Resources Agency has made sure that all water pumps, including the mobile and portable ones, are in good condition and ready to absorb water should flooding occur in a number of flood-prone areas in the capital.
“Most of the pumps are in good condition. We also carry out weekly checks to make sure there are no faulty [pumps in ] machines,” agency head Adrian Mata Maulana said as reported by tribunnews.com.
Adrian explained that the agency managed 19 pump houses and 38 water pumps with different capacities.
He said six out of 11 mobile and portable pumps were being repaired. “We only have 11 mobile and portable water pumps, which could pump out 100 to 400 liters of water per second. However six of them are broken,” he said.
North Jakarta administration and public welfare assistant Wawan Budi Rohman said he had appointed several agencies to boost measures in preparation for the upcoming rainy season.
“The water resources agency is tasked with cleaning up waterways and maintaining water pumps, while the environment agency and forestry agency are collaborating to cut down trees that are prone to falling down during heavy rainstorms,” Wawan said, adding that the agencies had been advised to cooperate with locals.
State-owned railway company PT Kereta Api (PT KAI) operational region (DAOP) I has also prepared water pumps to keep train tracks dry during North Jakarta’s coastal floods, which are common during the rainy season.
“We’ve prepared water pumps to make sure all commuter line train tracks are flood-free during the rainy season. We also carry out field checks more frequently to make sure there are no tracks that are prone to landslides,” said PT KAI DAOP 1 Jakarta spokesperson Eva Chairunisa. (nal)
