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Jakarta Post

Flood victims still stranded as relief agencies overwhelmed by volume, access

Many people continued to call for help on the second day of 2020 as emergency relief agencies struggled with overload and reduced access to certain areas due to flooding.

Ardila Syakriah (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, January 2, 2020

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Flood victims still stranded as relief agencies overwhelmed by volume, access Emergency response workers evacuate hotel guests on Jan. 1 in the flood-hit upscale area of Kemang, South Jakarta. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

P

eople are taking to social media to alert their neighbors and ask authorities for help, as the widespread flooding that hit Greater Jakarta on Jan. 1 has left people stranded on the upper floor and even the rooftop of their homes.

The residents of Villa Nusa Indah in Bogor, West Java, were trapped by floodwaters up to 3 meters high that inundated their homes on Wednesday morning, following the heavy downpour that began in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve.

Those in single-story houses were forced onto their rooftops, where they marked New Year's Day with limited food supplies and without a change of clothes.

Community unit (RT) head Subadri said that residents in Bojongkulur, Villa Nusa Indah, waited 12 hours before a search and rescue (SAR) team arrived to evacuate children and the elderly.

"Our area is located between the Bogor and Bekasi administrations, so evacuation always comes late," Subadri told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The team arrived at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, after the residents had waited half a day to be rescued, he said, and only after the residents had been able to reach the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) in Bogor and ask for help.

Subadri, who oversees an RT covering 42 households, said the evacuation took about four hours because the team was equipped only with two rubber dinghies that could each carry two people in addition to the rescuers. As a result, many residents remained trapped in their homes and some were drenched in the rain that fell later that evening.

Although the floodwater had started to recede by Thursday morning, Subadri said that many residents were running out of food because their houses were filled with mud.

Bojongkulur resident Anto Simanjuntak shared a second-floor bedroom with 12 other family members as they waited for the water to recede. 

"This is the worst flood I've ever experienced in the past 10 years. There was a similar flood in 2007, but it didn't get 3 meters high," he said.

Anto said that he and his family received no disaster relief aid on Wednesday, and that they were now relying on other relatives for food and spare clothing.

Villa Nusa Indah became a trending Twitter topic on Wednesday, when its residents posted pictures and videos of the area's flooding that drew the attention and sympathy of netizens. Some residents also shared their stories of being trapped in their homes while they asked for help in being evacuated.

Twitter user Rofik Rosyid (@rofikrasyid) uploaded a picture of flooded houses and submerged cars in Villa Nusa Indah.

"Why is all the focus on Jakarta? Bekasi and Bogor are flooded as well, and not a single [SAR] officer has evacuated our family in Villa Nusa Indah [...] Help us Pak @ridwankamil," he wrote, tagging the official account of West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil.

Rofik's tweet had been retweeted more than 3,000 times by 3 p.m. on Thursday.

"Last night, after I turned on my phone and tweeted, thank God for everyone's help, we were given meals. Thank God, the water has now receded, so everyone's cleaning their houses," he told the Post.

Nita Oktaviani (@nittonitnot) of Depok, West Java, in replying to another tweet on Wednesday that asked for help, shared a picture of houses standing in up to 1.5 meters of water in Pondok Bahar Permai in Tangerang, Banten.

"This evening, the water reached as high as 1.5 meters inside the house, but no assistance has come. Many people need evacuation and supplies," she wrote in the caption.

While she was unable to help on her own, Nita said she was worried about her parents, who were trapped on the second floor of their house in the area and were running out of food as they waited to be evacuated.

Nita told the Post on Thuesday that the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) had asked for her parents' contact information, but she was unsure they would be evacuated soon, since their house was located at the very rear of the complex.

Basarnas spokesman Yusuf Latif said that the agency was experiencing difficulty reaching several areas in Bekasi and Tangerang, as the flooding had cut off access. He added that the agency was overwhelmed by many requests for evacuation, since it had only 13 teams available for deploying across Greater Jakarta on Wednesday.

Yusuf said 38 teams with two dinghies each were deployed on Thursday, including to hard-hit areas like Vila Nusa Indah, Pondok Bahar and Kemang Pratama.

"Another hindrance in the evacuation effort is that the rubber dinghies are sometimes torn by nails or gates in the water, so the team must return [to base] to collect new boats," he told the Post on Thursday, adding that the agency would later determine the best equipment for completing the evacuation.

Yusuf added that the agency had gathered data on those areas that were not evacuated on Wednesday. It had also made the teams' contact details public, so that affected residents could call them directly for help.

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