Ciliwung areas flooded after weekend rain

JAKARTA. Hundreds of people living along the Ciliwung River were evacuated on Sunday after flooding occurred as a result of heavy rain in Bogor.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) data revealed that the highest alert, Siaga 1, was declared for Katulampa Dam, where the water level was 210 centimeters on Sunday evening.

Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency head (BPPD) Deni Wahyu said on Monday that 27 neighborhood units (RW) were affected by flooding on Sunday.

Deni said 454 residents of Kampung Pulo and Kampung Melayu were evacuated to shelters on Sunday night. They returned to their homes on Monday morning after the water subsided.

He warned that this year's rainy season would bring more flooding as water would flow faster from Katulampa Dam in Bogor to the Manggarai sluice gate in South Jakarta.

Jakarta Water Management agency head Tri Djoko Margianto said areas affected by flood from the overflow of the Ciliwung River in Jakarta on Sunday included Rawajati and Bukit Duri in South Jakarta and Kampung Pulo and Bidara Cina in East Jakarta.

"The solution to this problem is normalizing the river and the river embankment," he told journalists at City Hall.

Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama said his administration would install sheet piles along the riverbanks as one of the solutions.

"The river is not wide enough and we can't make it wider, but we still need to control [flooding] by using sheet piles," Ahok said.

The city administration had been focusing on dredging canals and rivers to help the water flow to manage flooding as the rainy season started this month.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency (BMKG) has forecast that the rainy season will peak in January and urged all local administrations to prepare for rain-related disasters like floods and landslides.