About 100 000 people camped out at roadsides and in emergency shelters as swathes of the Indonesian capital remained inundated on Saturday following a third night of torrential downpours with more rain forecast.
Officials said they were struggling to cope with the scale of the disaster while hundreds of troops and navy personnel equipped with inflatable boats and rafts were deployed to help the worst-hit areas of Jakarta.
”We have made the optimum effort to evacuate people but because of the number and the vast area to cover we hope people understand [the problems we are facing],” Sugeng Triutomo from the national disaster management body told el-Shinta radio.
About 100 000 people had been displaced by the floods, the state Antara news agency reported, citing disaster management body figures.
Hundreds of families were seen huddled together alongside roads in higher areas after fleeing their flooded homes in the city, which is criss-crossed by 13 rivers.
Waters up to two metres deep submerged areas of the city, including the upmarket Kelapa Gading housing complex in the north, which is usually less prone to flooding.
”I had to put my motorcycle in the university out there and walk in the floods to my house last night [Friday],” Kelapa Gading resident Najmi said.
”The water in front of my house is about one metre. We have been trapped here since yesterday morning,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Several other Kelapa Gading residents called el-Shinta, saying some old people and pregnant women were trapped in their houses and had requested evacuation.
Water, electricity supplies and telecommunications have been cut in several areas of the city due to the floods.
Search and rescue workers and nurses in inflatable boats were offering medical help to flood victims along the main Ciliwung river, Hadianto, head of the independent Jakarta Rescue group said.
”Areas that we go to are very far from the reach of cars. We have to hop from roof to roof of people’s houses,” he told AFP.
Hadianto said the main complaints so far were diarrhoea and skin problems, with children and old people suffering the most. Indonesian Red Cross volunteers were cooking and delivering food to people stranded in their flooded homes or sheltering at the side of roads.
Other non-governmental organisations, the government and political parties have also set up public kitchens to feed the thousands of displaced people.
City water control officials warned that the floods could worsen, with continuing rains in nearby Bogor city expected to exacerbate the situation by nightfall.
”Katulampa watergate is 70cm above normal and the water level is rising,” a Jakarta water control officer told AFP, referring to the main sluice gate controlling the flow of water from Bogor, which is at a higher elevation.
More rain was forecast in Jakarta and surrounding areas over the weekend, said a meteorologist from the meteorology and geophysics office.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar blamed the floods on excessive construction in water catchment areas, Antara reported.
”There are too many malls in the capital city,” he said.
Witoelar said many developers had not paid enough attention to the ecological impact of their construction projects.
Old Batavia, the former colonial port under the Dutch, from where Jakarta has expanded, was built on marshland. Certain areas of the capital are below sea level and have weak drainage, with major tides slowing down the outflow of rainwater.
In 2002, floods killed as many as 40 Jakartans and about 300 000 were forced to seek refuge in mosques, schools and even cemeteries. – Sapa-AFP