Over 94.624 people (Source: Tribunnews), and possibly the count will raise eventually in Jakarta take refuges around the flyovers and safer places and left their home to rot and be swept by the high stream of water.
Five found dead.
Originally posted in Wordpress.
For the very reason I was writing one special post about this was because I am genuinely concerned about my country's capital city, Jakarta. The reason why I wrote it in English because I feel comfortable of doing so, and I will translate this post into Indonesian in other posts.
Jakarta. That is where I have lived for over 10 years, and to be purely honest, I love my city. Most of you who knows where I am, I supposed you could know what happened in Jakarta now. This post will be viewed based on my third-party view where I am trying hard to be neutral in this case. However it might not look like so, if you are offended, I deeply apologize for everything, but as a nationalist, I simply can't hold back on stating what I see.
Jakarta is flooding, and the causalities are pretty much worsen from years before.
In a big line, you could read about the article written by BBC staff here. (English)
I have just evacuated from Jakarta (where I live every Monday till Friday because my school is in Jakarta for this year), and my family and I were forcefully needed to go to the neighboring city, Tangerang since originally my house is there. For every ungrateful people over there, you need to know that the water level almost reached my neck and it would kill me if I can't swim or my family didn't rent any water boat to get us to a higher place.
So the first question is, how about the people out there who can't even swim, rather, who can't even save their own life?
A rather blatant answer was pretty obvious given from our logical thinking. It raised the causality count.
To put in a way, I really want to have a word about this especially to all Jakartans or Indonesians around who read my post-- you guys must realize the 'things' that had made Jakarta like this, you guys must 'act'. It's not enough to just know and didn't do anything that will make this city better. That means you guys were trying to act oblivious and tried to search for a scapegoat to put blames too. Apparently, most of those scapegoats are for the Government because of their sickening issues about spending a lot of APBN (National Budget) needlessly, such as trying to build a massive and high-technology building for themselves, while most Indonesians are starving to death (as I type this too). But the main point is, you guys are the citizens, you guys are the people, you guys can't just let everything to be burdened on the Government's shoulder. That is despicable. Why not do a couple of trivial things to make the city better even though it didn't actually amount much if to compare with what the Government's doing?
I have heard a lot of people have complaints about the lack of prevention from the Jakarta's Governor, Joko Widodo (Shortened as Jokowi) and his crew. I mean people, he has just started his reign for 94 days and nothing could simply be achieved in a simple amount of time. Let's just use our logic to figure this out. Jakarta's tendency of flooding has been a legend till now and you expect a mere human could prevent it from happening in just 94 days? Let's try to expect for 5 years onward, shall we? I will try to still stand in my standing point as a neutral poster, so I won't comment much how good Jokowi will handle the situation, but if you want prove, you could just see how he did for Jakarta in this article.
This occurrence is not uncommon. Jakarta is really infamous for its habitual / periodic flood, thorough the country or even the international network. Why can't we make the capital be more recognized for its positive phenomenon than its negative ones? To put it rather blatantly, it's pretty obvious of why did that happen.
The second question is, what did the Indonesians do to Jakarta so it had made it less that a Jayakarta?
Every living people that I know here will litter their trash at least once a day in not a trashbin, but a sewer, river or even the streets. Why hello people, that is exactly why it made the rivers (Such as Kali Ciliwung, Kali Sekretaris, or other rivers and all) flood because the water was stranded by a huge amount of trash.
You people who always trash litters randomly can't just stand there and watch from your telly while you're happily-go-around to have everyone suffer because of your little issue of impracticality. I heard enough--no, more than enough complaints from the people in my environment about impracticality and wasting time more than we should. That is not true. It's right that you have to watch your time so you won't end up wasting any of it needlessly, but you are stingy in the wrong place. Are you a sloth or whatsoever creature that had no sense of giving hospitality and have a mind of the later issues you have when you throw away your trash to the river?
No. You are not.
You are humans, you know what to do. You have a mind greater than any living creature in this place, so why not act like it?
I had trained and discipline myself to NOT litter anything, even a plastic from a candy wrap to things like a plastic bag full of trash. I have always tried since I have known Geography from the 5th grade that littering trashes will make the river flood. Yes, I know it took time to make the habit grows as if it lives with us, but that's the reason why your act could help Jakarta at least for a bit. It needed time to work for me to keep my trash inside my pocket and then throw it out inside of the trashbin. It's not like I sacrifice a lot of things from that routine.
If I can do that, why can't you? I'm only 15, but I know where I should place my trust in.
For the horrid flood enough, the PLN (Indonesian: Perusahaan Listrik Negara / English: State Electricity Company) had cut off the electricity supply to the houses of everyone who stand still against the high stream of water to prevent other causalities. One of the example why history shouldn't be repeated is about a family of one father with his three children were dead because of electricity shorting. (Originally seen from Metro TV Breaking News)
Another point where Jakarta had grown worsen was because of its frequent newcomers from other regional areas (Such as Surabaya, Bandung, or even further places away like Papua, from Sulawesi, and other villages inside of the region), which made a small city like Jakarta had grown bigger and bigger while the places to stay had grown more expensive and expensive, and less less ground to put even a tent for a shelter. Even though this sound harsh, but it's what I saw from the reality, my friends--you might know that Jakarta is a place where you can have all of the worst to the best opportunities to test your luck out, but most of 'em are the worst. Living in Jakarta is not easy, you know? If you can compare it to the other cities, the cost of having food there had doubled, (Last time I know when I am eating at Bandung, I only need 10,000 IDR / Rupiah to fill up my stomach, you won't get enough food just for 10,000 in Jakarta), the cost of living was one of the major aspect as well. (Because most of the residential houses were mostly semi-detached, or a penthouse, or flats and it didn't cost cheap price) That was one of the reason why it's not rare to see a lot of people had houses made on the edge of the river. Why so?
It didn't need any certificate for you to build a house near the edge of the village, and it didn't take so much things to pay especially if you live near a water source. Just like humans in old age usually do, live where the water is near.
There were a lot of bad things happened between the governments and the citizens who lived on the edge of the river, or so I heard some mass media said. The citizens who actually don't have the right to even build a shack or anything around that area demanded for actually not rightful payment of their loss and it's not rare that I have seen a lot of families were weeping when their shacks and houses were falling down because the governments were trying to make a safe. It's not that I'm an insensitive bastard and so on, I didn't feel apathetic about this, in fact I'm feeling guilty for not being able to help them. But to put it objectively, it's one of the cause why the river was flooding and it brings a catastrophe for the city.
Other things that had made the situation worse was because of its hectic and rigid spatial layout which made Jakarta couldn't breathe. Everywhere had traffic jams, everywhere you will know countless of transportation were going two ways on the road. Where would the water from the rainwater goes after falling on the ground? You only have concrete and cemented road, there won't be any place to absorb the water, and so it flows. What if it flows? It becomes larger with the other and it became a flood, that is what.
This kind of catastrophe is one of the biggest one ever recorded in my whole life. The last time it flood, it was around 6 years ago, that meant this flood that had met Jakarta was also a periodic flood, but in a more destructive way, since the casualties were higher than years before. There are water pumps to move away a considerable amount of water out from the city, but you know it won't be enough.
Recently, Jokowi had started to announce that Jakarta would be in an emergency situation until 27th of January 2013. That was pretty long since you know, the last time the periodic flood started (The five years flood), it took a whole 5 days to make Jakarta operational again. So it would be no wonder if Jokowi announced so. I hope Jakarta would be getting better.
There are a lot of things that I actually want to say in this post, but since I have been a bit tired because of my evacuation from Jakarta to Tangerang, I will have to postpone on continuing this post and I will post a lot of photos about drowning cars and other things. And in the other side of this post, I am ultimately worried about my grandparents well-being since they were still in Jakarta.
*** Translations for the Articles (By me, not by Google Translate)***
[1] Jokowi lifted bags of stones to repair the levee.
{Source: DetikNews, Edited so the readers could get the big line of the article}
Jakarta - The Governor of DKI Jakarta, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) wanted the broken levee in Jl. Latuharhary, Jakarta Pusat to be repaired as soon as possible. He joined in to lift up bags of stones and shards to repair the broken levee.
Two bags of shards and stones were lifted by Jokowi up on the standby lorry that was located on the railway for it to be transported to the edge of the levee, Thursday (17/01/2013). Jokowi and the other staffs were busy to lift up the bags. The citizens around the railways were gathered to watch the repairments of the levee.
The bags are going to be designed so it would close in the edge of the levee.
For a long period of solution, Jokowi had programs such as the plan to normalize the big rivers and sewers in Jakarta, like Kali Pesanggrahan, Kali Angke, and Kali Sunter; dredging the rivers and creating more catchment wells.
However, the programs that were mentioned above haven't been started yet since it hasn't gotten any legitimate certificate for APBD (Region Budgets) 2013 yet.
There are 78 flooding points in DKI Jakarta. With the East Flood Canal, 78 frequently flooded location has been reduced into 16 locations. The rest, 62 locations would be constantly handled. Each year, Jokowi targeted to reduce 8-12 volatile locations.
[2] The flood is getting better, but Kemayoran is still in the dark.
{Source: DetikNews, Edited so the readers could get the big line of the article}
Jakarta - The one meter flood that had swept the location of Bungur Besar Raya, Kemayoran, Jakarta Pusat had started to recede at 18:00 (06:00 PM). The water level if to be scaled was as high as adult's knee.
From a thorough observation from DetikCom, Thursday (17/01/2013), Even though the location near the previous part of Kemayoran had started to recede, but the electricity in Kemayoran was still turned off. This act of PLN had started 7 hours before the flood had recede.
[3] Jokowi announced emergency state until 27 January.
{Source: Kompas.com, edited so the readers could get the big line of the article}
Jakarta - The Governor of DKI Jakarta, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) announced Jakarta to be in an emergency state until the end of January 2013.
His statement had been delivered as soon as the end of his participation of traffic sector meeting with the Great Minister of Citizen's Peace Coodinator Laksono, The Minister of Civil Works Djoko Kirmanto, The Head of BNPB (Indonesia: Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana / English: The National Organization of Catastrophe Prevention), and the Undersecretary of Education and Tradition Musliar Kasim in Balai Kota, Jakarta, Thursday (17/01/2013).
[4] List of citizens who died at Jakarta's Flood 2013.
- 1. Angga (13), Male, from Tanjung Duren Utara, West Jakarta. Died because he was drift in Sekretaris River.
- 2. Inah (82), Female, from Kampung Pulo, Jatinegara. Died because age factor.
- 3. Mujiyo (46), Male, from Cengkareng, West Jakarta. Died because of electricity shorting at flooding site.
- 4. Muhamad Haikal (2), Male, from Cengkareng, West Jakarta. Died because he fell down from his crib inside of his house at the time the flood goes on.
- 5. Solahuddin (35), Male, from Kalibata Pulo, South Jakarta. Died because of electricity shorting at flooding site.
