Jakarta paralysed by heavy floods, affecting thousands of homes and businesses
- Soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats struggled to evacuate children and the elderly who were stranded on the roofs of their houses
- The flooding has highlighted Indonesia’s infrastructure problems: the city is home to 10 million people but is sinking due to extraction of groundwater
Floods that have crippled much of Indonesia’s capital intensified on Tuesday, inundating thousands of homes and buildings, including the presidential palace, and paralysing transport networks, officials and witnesses said.
Overnight rains caused more rivers to burst their banks in greater Jakarta starting on Sunday, sending muddy water up to 1.5 metres deep into more residential and commercial areas, said Agus Wibowo, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesman.
Floodwaters entered parts of Indonesia’s presidential palace complex on Tuesday morning but the situation was brought under control with water pumps, said Bey Machmudin, an official at the Presidential Office.
The heavy downpour that hit the capital on Sunday had submerged the state-run Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital, the country’s largest hospital, damaging medical machines and equipment, Wibowo said.
Wibowo said the floods on Tuesday inundated scores of districts and left more than 300 people homeless, forced authorities to cut off electricity and paralysed transport, including commuter lines, as floodwaters reached as high as 1.5 metres in places.
Television footage showed soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats struggling to evacuate children and the elderly who were stranded on the roofs of their houses.