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Tangerang braces for extreme weather
Following the massive floods that struck Tangerang city in Banten at the turn of the new year, the city administration has imposed several measures for better flood prevention amid warnings of extreme weather during the rainy season
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span>Following the massive floods that struck Tangerang city in Banten at the turn of the new year, the city administration has imposed several measures for better flood prevention amid warnings of extreme weather during the rainy season.
Among the efforts was to install 4,000 injection wells to control floods, Mayor Arief Wismansyah said.
"We plan to install more injection wells in the city. We already have several wells in schools and on roads. This year we're planning to build 4,000 more," he said recently as reported by kompas.com.
Arief explained the wells could contain rainwater runoff and prevent inundation. The wells would also allow the water to be absorbed deep in the ground, restoring groundwater supply in the process.
He claimed the injection wells had reduced flooding in the city. They also helped floodwater subside faster in the affected areas.
"Floodwater subsided relatively faster in areas that had injection wells," he said.
Besides installing thousands of injection wells, the city administration recently drained several retention basins in the satellite city as part of its flood prevention program.
"River capacity to accommodate rainwater is limited. The retention basins could collect rainwater runoff temporarily," Tangerang Public Works and Housing Agency secretary Taufik Syahzaeni said on Monday as quoted by Antara.
Taufik said the city had drained eight basins to allow them to collect more rainwater runoff. They are Ledug River, Lake Bulakan, Lake Cipondoh and reservoirs in Garden City, Pondok Bahar, Nusa Jaya, Cipondoh Makmur and Cimone.
Tangerang Deputy Mayor Sachrudin said the city had normalized several waterways in Periuk district and repaired at least 14 broken river embankments in the city.
Arief said his administration would optimize the function of lakes and other bodies of water in the city in anticipation of high rainfall and extreme weather in the rainy season.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) recently issued a warning of possible extreme weather, such as heavy downpours and thunderstorms, in January across Greater Jakarta.
BMKG meteorology deputy head Mulyono R. Prabowo said the agency’s analysis of atmospheric dynamics had indicated that monsoon activity in Asia remained high, with winds exhibiting convergence patterns from the north of Banten to Nusa Tenggara.
Extreme weather was one of the main causes of massive floods earlier this month in Greater Jakarta and Banten. The BMKG recorded torrential rainfall intensity of 377 millimeters per day at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in East Jakarta on New Year’s Eve.
According to experts, the rainfall intensity recorded at Halim Perdanakusuma was 20 times higher than the average rainfall intensity in Greater Jakarta and the highest in the country’s recorded history.
Leonardo Simanjuntak of Greenpeace Indonesia said the extreme rainfall intensity was caused by increased water vapor at sea, as ocean temperatures were on the rise on account of global warming.
“Before the extreme rainfall, we experienced a prolonged dry season, and as we speak, Australia is experiencing massive bushfires due to the extreme heat and drought,” he told The Jakarta Post last week.
Due to the extreme weather, Tangerang was soaked in massive floods from Jan 1 to 3.
The Tangerang Disaster Mitigation Agency’s emergency and logistics head, Hambali Bakar, said flooding hit 294 areas in the city.
“Floodwater reached dangerous levels, from 90 centimeters to 3 meters deep, in around 20 areas. While the rest were submerged from 30-cm-deep up to 60-cm -deep,” he said on Thursday.
The flooding claimed six lives in Tangerang and displaced around 40,000 people.
