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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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March
2007
Volume
12 - Number 3 |
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The 2007 Flooding in Indonesia By James T. Mendelson Seasonal downpours have caused
landslides and flash flooding to wreak havoc across Indonesia, leaving a large
majority of the country’s population homeless. In Indonesia, millions of
people live in mountainous areas or fertile plains that span across the archipelago,
or chain, of 17,000 islands. Flooding and landslides are common events in
Indonesia, who encounters dozens of landslides and flash floods each year.
However, two days of heavy relentless rain at the end of January 2007 set
off the worst large-scale flooding since 2002. The flooding inundated power
sources and public water distribution centers that supplied utilities to
government buildings, local businesses and the homes of local citizens.
With the flood waters looming over the area for several weeks, emergency responders and relief workers have been overwhelmed with requests for aid. In the first few days it was estimated that at least 25 people were killed and 340,000 people fled or evacuated to family or religious institutional shelters located on higher ground. It has been estimated that over three quarters of the overall land mass of Indonesia has been inundated with water. Indonesian officials dispatched medical teams on rubber rafts to the areas impacted the worst. The rising flood waters have produced favorable conditions for the spread of malaria, dengue fever, typhoid and avian flu. Government and volunteer doctors have been treating large numbers of refugees for diarrhea, skin diseases, respiratory problems and exposure. The refugees had spent days in damp, dirty clothes and disease conditions seem to be getting worse. At the peak of the flood, half of the land area of Indonesia was covered in 12 feet of water. As the water levels subsided in the city, hundreds of square miles of land, including rice fields, surrounding the city continue to remain inundated. The flood water has contributed to the death of at least 200 people through either electrocution or drowning. In the capital city of Jakarta alone, at lease 400,000 people out of a population of 12 million have been declared homeless. In the past few days electricity and phone services have been restored to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Residents began to return to survey the damage to their washed out houses. In Jakarta, the flooding has caused an estimated $460 million in damage. Fire trucks have been deployed out into the streets to spray disinfectant in hard hit areas to help with the spread of disease due to rancid water and garbage that is scattered across the flood hit areas. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has promised to seek more funds to try to prevent similar events in the future. Historically, the county has done little to mitigate similar disasters in the past. Many of the mitigation solutions to reduce the impact of the flooding would be as simple as building levees and new drainage systems to limit the flooding. References and additional information: www.foxnews.com www.cnn.com www.msnbc.msn.com |