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Disaster agency braces for floods, landslides and tornadoes
The agency recorded over 2,700 hydrological disasters, including floods, landslides and tornadoes, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 16, 2019, an increase from about 2,500 incidents last year.
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People clean the road from mud after a flash flood in Kertasari in Bandung regency, West Java, on Dec. 7, 2019. (Antara/Novrian Arbi)
A
n increase in the number of floods, landslides and tornadoes across the country this year has forced the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) to prepare a better disaster mitigation system as the rising trend is predicted to continue next year.
The agency recorded over 2,700 hydrological disasters, including floods, landslides and tornadoes, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 16, 2019, an increase from about 2,500 incidents last year.
The data, released by the agency Tuesday, shows that most of disasters were tornadoes with over 1,280 occurrences this year. Meanwhile, floods and landslides occurred 734 times and 685 times, respectively, in the same period.
Agency spokesperson Agus Wibowo said the rising trend of hydrological disasters would likely continue next year as environmental damages would worsen conditions.
According to data from the Environment and Forestry Ministry, Indonesia lost around 440,000 hectares of forest between 2017 and 2018. As a comparison, the size of Bali Island is around 578,000 hectares.
Meanwhile, the BNPB recorded over 942,480 hectares of forest had burned in forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra in 2019.
“Looking at the data and the environmental destruction, I am afraid that we will have a more disastrous rainy season at the beginning and the end of next year,” Agus told reporters.
