Flood in Jakarta

Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, has been hit by some of the worst flood in years. Some areas are said to be submerged 4 meters under water. About 200,000 thousands are currently homeless, with 20 found dead; and the numbers are rising.

The rain has finally stopped after pouring in for days, giving chance for rescue workers to evacuate people faster. This is in anticipation of more rain.

“Jakarta is geographically not qualified to be the capital city, but this is the reality,” Sutiyoso, Jakarta’s governor, said in an interview on Metro TV. “We can’t afford to move the capital city somewhere else.”
Sutiyoso blamed deforestation south of Jakarta, which obliterated the water catchment area. However, when the rain fell just in Jakarta alone, it still floods. Sutiyoso was under heavy fire when similar flood happened five years ago, and the flood this time proved that he hasn’t accomplish anything to stop it from happening again.

There was plan to build a new flood canal on 1970, in addition to the current one built by the Dutch on 1930; but it was never completed. Talks are starting again now to restart the project. It’s estimated that it will cost around $440 million.

People are concerned that the flood will bring new outbreak. With dengue fever already in rise, additional outbreaks will seriously burden already overloaded medical facilities.

Parts of Jakarta has experienced various loss of services - electricity, clean water, telephone & mobile phone service, etc. The flood is so bad it reached places which never experienced it before.
Internet access also has been affected, with Telkom (one of the biggest Internet Service Provider) Internet giving out sluggish performance. Telkom’s datacenter, which hosts the Indonesian President’s website, was also affected when the electricity went out and the generators can’t be started because it’s put in the basement, which was already submerged under water.