DKI JAKARTA - JAKARTA. After heavy rain drenched Jakarta on Monday afternoon, several areas suffered from flooding, including in Rawa Terate, Cakung subdistrict, East Jakarta.
The Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), via its official Twitter account @BPBDJakarta, reported at 4:47 p.m. that there was 1-meter-deep flooding in the area.
The agency recorded that the heavy rain had left at least seven areas across East, West and South Jakarta with around 10 to 20 centimeters of inundation as of 5:27 p.m.
“We call on people planning to use the [inundated] roads to be careful and choose alternative roads instead,” @BPDBJakarta tweeted.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) warned on Monday that heavy rain with strong winds and lightning could potentially occur in the next few days in Greater Jakarta.
BMKG spokesman Hary Djatmiko said the agency had predicted that such weather conditions would continue in the capital until Friday, as the rainy season had just begun in late November.
The agency predicts that the rainy season across the country will last until March next year.
He also said the agency had predicted that the peak of the rainy season nationwide would occur from December until February. Meanwhile, the peak of the rainy season in Greater Jakarta was likely be in January and February, he said.
“If we look at the pattern, [the peak of the rainy season in Greater Jakarta] will be from mid January until mid February,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Hary explained that the agency regularly communicated weather prediction updates to regional administrations.
“Updates will be every 10 days or monthly,” he said, adding that the weather updates from the agency would hopefully help each regional administration to mitigate the risk of flooding or landslides.
With flooding having already occurred in a number of areas across the capital, Jakarta is bracing for the impacts of the rainy season.
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan recently said there were 30 flood-prone areas spread across five administrations, four of which are in Central Jakarta, 13 in South Jakarta, four in East Jakarta, six in West Jakarta and three in North Jakarta.
The city administration is gearing up to mitigate the potential flooding with several strategies, such as installing vertical drainage systems that guide rainwater directly into the ground to prevent excess runoff.
With 13 rivers running through the capital, Jakarta regularly suffers from flooding when the water volume exceeds the river capacity after heavy rain.
To tackle the problem, Jakarta Water Management Agency head Teguh Hendrawan said the agency had deployed 241 pieces of heavy equipment, including excavators and dump trucks, to dredge bodies of water.
He also said the agency had repaired sheet piles on rivers in six different areas to optimize water flow.
“Another effort has been to construct levees to strengthen the river wall,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency. The measure was taken to ensure the river wall does not collapse easily if the water volume and river flow is high.
In 2018, Teguh said local branches of the agency in five municipalities had dredged thousands of sites, constructed levees in 318 locations and revitalized sheet piles in 644 spots.
He also said the agency had readied pumps in 153 locations and 102 mobile pumps for draining floodwater.
The Jakarta Environment Agency, in cooperation with the Jakarta Water Management Agency and firefighters, have also been removing garbage from water channels since October.
The Jakarta Police have also helped in the efforts to mitigate flooding by deploying around 7,000 police personnel and establishing 13 task forces at district police posts, which will be on guard until March.
