- Title: INDONESIA: Jakarta residents clean up after floods but more rain is forecast.
- Date: 8th February 2007
- Summary: VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC
- Embargoed: 23rd February 2007 13:32
- Keywords:
- Location: Indonesia
- Country: Indonesia
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Environment / Natural World
- Reuters ID: LVA2ZI1P1CBUTHRVVBKZ0KJQ95ID
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: Thousands of residents of the Indonesian capital began returning to their homes on Thursday as flood waters receded, but they faced a huge task clearing up streets and homes caked in stinking garbage and mud. Indonesian President Yudhoyono has said emergency relief operations will stay in place because more rain is on the way.
More than a week of pounding rain has caused chaos in the capital Jakarta, bringing the city to a near standstill with major thoroughfares, shops and schools forced to close.
Light rain fell in Jakarta early on Thursday (February 8) following a heavy overnight downpour on the city where most floodwaters have receded.
The death toll from the floods, the worst for at least five years, rose to 54 people, a health ministry official said.
A lull in the recent torrential rains meant the waters had receded in some parts of Jakarta, which together with suburbs is home to an estimated 14 million people. Waters remained high in some areas, however, and some new flooding was also reported. Water in Manggarai sluice on Thursday is reaching 840 centimetre deep while it should be 750 centimetre.
"We clean our house hoping we can sleep in this house tonight. Sleep in our own house much much better than sleep in the shelter" said Teddy a residents in Bukit Duri, an area close to Manggarai sluice.
"I still worry that the house flood whenever it rains, while we are cleaning the house" said Saniah, a housewife in Kampung Melayu as she cleaned kitchen utensils outside her house.
Excavators were clearing out piles of black dirt from a main road in Kampung Melayu in east Jakarta, a badly affected area. Residents hung clothes and mattresses to dry outside their garbage-splattered homes.
Water in some slum areas nearby was still high, with garbage and dead animals blocking entrances to the crammed neighbourhood.
There may be more flooding to come. Kompas newspaper quoted a meteorologist as saying rains may return in two or three days.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that emergency relief operations will stay in place because more rain was forecast.
"The overall situation is improving, even though we still expect that the rain will come again in Jakarta," he told a news conference.
"That's why what we are doing now is continuing our emergency relief operations to provide food, medical supplies and other treatment to the evacuees who are now living in temporary shelters. The problem we are facing is, on one hand, we are facing heavy rain over and around the area of Jakarta, at the same time we are also having a rise of our sea level and it is reported to increase 1.7 metre. That's why we still expect the unexpected, what we are doing now is to ensure that all emergency relief operation is well implemented."
International help has started to trickle in with the European Union offering 600,000 Euros (800,000 U.S. dollars) and Holland, the former colonial ruler, one million Euros.
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