Banjir... banjir...
Again, this is the time of the year when the rainy season pours millions of buckets of water to Jakarta. One of my best friends in Jakarta said that it was so hard for her to go out to do grocery shopping, because everywhere is flooded. Not just that, she just had a baby and the baby clothes could not get dried because of the non-stop rain and she could not go out to buy new ones. I got text messages from my mom, saying that my uncle and aunts in Jakarta had to move out of their homes because the water level was so high. The most recent message said that the water already reached the ceiling. Their homes are only one story high, so they moved in with a neighbor who has two story home.
I remember visiting my uncle and aunts in 2002, after the big flood on Feb 6, 2002 when their homes were also flooded with 90cm of water. All furnitures were wet -- sofas and beds were soaked, cupboards and cabinets looked damp, the wooden furnitures were ruined. The water left marks on the walls that showed how bad the flood was.
This is February 2007 -- almost exactly five years after that. Yet, still Jakarta gets the same problem. Flood, flood, flood. Three days of non-stop rain had made the city almost malfunction. AFP news (Feb 4) reported that 7 people have died, while more than 190,000 displaced. BBC news article (Feb 4) noted that the water is heavily polluted. Combined with the outbreak of the dengue fever that has killed more than 1,800 people in January, the flood increased anxiety that there would be outbreaks of other diseases. (Not to mention that the avian flu is still a big issue; but that would take another discussion.) A news article in Kompas.com reported that 70% of the city is flooded from the Ciliwung River overflow.
In this posting, I am questioning about the cause of the flood. Is it really because of the non-stop rain? I would argue that it is so easy to blame nature for the disaster, yet there are human factors that play into view. Compared with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA, for example; human factors play in the disaster by the speedy global warming that made bigger storms and also the maintenance of the levees.
In the case of Jakarta, the question is: since the flood in 2002, has there been any actions to prevent the flooding to occur? We cannot stop the rain from pouring -- it IS the rainy season. But, first of all, how about the sprawl of the villa developments in Puncak area in Bogor regency that has reduced the capacity of the soil to absorb the water in the Ciliwung River? Considering that so often the media describe the flood as a "delivery from Bogor", I think there should have been a step to conserve and replace some of the lost water-absorbing grounds. Secondly, to face a heavy rainy season, a city needs infrastructure support. The accussation that the flood is a "delivery" should NOT lead to ignorance that there is a problem in Jakarta's drainage system. We know that a built-up area has less capacity to absorb water than open soil. With the massive development of Jakarta, the city is covered with mostly concrete. Consequently, there needs to be more canals and water drainage to channel the water properly so that the water would not flood the streets and homes. This step will also protect the quality of the streets, because a flooded street would damage the asphalt layer. Most importantly, building infrastructures to prevent flood would prevent the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
To conclude this posting, I urge the city of Jakarta to take action to prevent this disaster to occur in the future. I know that everybody in Jakarta cares (and should care) about the city. At least, we should minimize the human factor in the flood, because that is something that we can control. Otherwise, the flood will come again and again, and it will only get worse. Going back to the illustration from my uncle and aunts' homes, it went from 90cm in 2002 to the ceiling in 2007. With this flood, the city is also economically disadvantaged, because:
1) it slowed down and even blocked the economic activities in the city: markets are shut down, transportation does not work, people cannot go to work. ATM transactions were disabled and internet connections were disconnected. This costs a lot for the city to lose business days;
2) it damages properties and streets. Eventually these damages need to be repaired. Spending money for preventive actions is always better than for repairing the damages that could have been avoided through preventive measures;
3) it damages the image of Jakarta, not just nationally, but globally. Jakarta is supposed to be the "global city" of Indonesia, the cosmopolitan "gateway" of the country to the international world. How would the global world view the city now that it clearly has an acute flood problem? Image of the city** is very important, not only to attract investments but also as a symbol of the whole nation to the world, that this is the capital city we can be proud of.
The most important thing to keep in mind: The flood victimizes the people in the city, while the people are the most important part of the city. There would be no city of Jakarta if there is no people of Jakarta. I am sure that we can still be proud of Jakarta. It just needs some work -- perhaps a lot of work -- but it has all the potential. By keeping in mind that the people is the priority in the city, we need to start to address the problem NOW and plan for a sustainable city.
** Kevin Lynch's "Image of the City" (Lynch 1960) refers to the visual quality of the city. In this posting, my use of the term "image of the city" refers not only to the visual quality of the city, but also the symbolic meaning of the city as a whole to its people and the world.
Sources:
CNN News/Associated Press. "200,000 homeless in Jakarta floods." February 5, 2007.
Kompas Cyber Media. "Jakarta Masih Terendam." By Emilius Caesar Alexey, February 4, 2007. (http://www.kompas.com)
Kompas Cyber Media. "Ratusan Warga Bukit Duri Butuh Makanan." February 4, 2007. (http://www.kompas.com)
Kompas Cyber Media. "Stasiun Tanah Abang Masih Terendam." February 4, 2007. (http://www.kompas.com)
Kompas Cyber Media. "Kedatangan KA Terlambat 10 Jam Karena Banjir." February 3, 2007. (http://www.kompas.com)
Kompas Cyber Media. "PT KA Rugi Lebih Dari Rp 800 Juta Akibat Banjir." February 2, 2007. (http://www.kompas.com)
BBC News. "Rain adds to Jakarta flood misery." February 4, 2007.
AFP News on Yahoo! "Indonesia on high alert as flood death toll climbs." February 4, 2007.
BBC News. "Humans blamed for climate change." February 3, 2007.
Yahoo! News Photo. "Flooding in Malaysia and Indonesia." February 2007.
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960.
Gore, Albert. An Inconvenient Truth. Paramount Classics and Participant Productions. 2006.
