Natural catastrophes

7.2, floods, fatalities

Indonesia: thousands of residents of Jakarta began returning to their homes as flood waters receded, facing the huge task clearing up streets and homes caked in stinking garbage and mud. The death toll from the floods, the worst for at least five years, rose to 50 people, according to Indonesia’s health ministry. Around 230,000 people were displaced by the floods. A lull in the recent torrential rains meant the waters had receded in some parts of Jakarta, which together with suburbs is home to an estimated 14 million people. The economic impact of the floods, which have caused power blackouts, cut telecommunications and made many key roads impassable will take time to calculate. Indonesia’s Planning Minister put an initial estimate of the cost at 4.1 trillion rupiah ($453mn). Environmentalists blamed poor planning in a city that has seen a huge construction boom since the financial crisis of the late 1990s, saying that only 2.9% of Jakarta’s total area was utilised for drainage, below the minimum of 8%. However, some campaigners said that even at 8% the sheer volume of water from recent rain storms would have overwhelmed the drainage system.