After torential rains:
Jakarta airport closed
Indonesia’s main airport was closed on Friday as more than 40 flights
were delayed and some forced to return after takeoff due to low
visibility following torrential rains.
Several cars were stranded and people waded through nearly knee-high
water as flood waters swamped roads and strong winds battered the city
of 14 million, which is hit by the massive floods at this time almost
every year.
“The runway is fine, it is not inundated by water but the rain and
fog have blurred visibility. Visibility is less than 300 metres while it
should be more than 500 metres,” said Hariyanto, an official at Soekarno
Hatta airport.
“The airport has been closed since 10 a.m. and 43 flights have been
delayed. There are 12 flights from outside Jakarta that cannot land.”
He said later that 15 flights had been diverted to Jakarta’s smaller
Halim airport, while several planes coming to the capital were forced to
return to Singapore.
Scores of cars were left abandoned in the streets of the capital as
people had to wade through muddy brown flood water.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was forced to abandon
his bullet-proof presidential car after his motorcade tried to pass
through knee-high flood waters.
The president’s security escort had to usher Yudhoyono into a sport
utility vehicle after his Mercedes Benz got stuck on a main road about 2
km (1.2 miles) from the presidential palace.
Indonesia’s capital is regularly hit by floods and last year about 50
people died, many due to electrocution, and more than 400,000 people
were displaced after days of heavy rain.
After the 2007 floods, the then governor of Jakarta said the city
administration needed more help from the central government to deal with
the annual hazard.
There were no reports of deaths in Jakarta on Friday after flood
waters rose to 20-50 cm, but a health ministry official said four people
were killed and thousands displaced from their homes after heavy rains
in parts of Java and Sulawesi islands.
A weather agency official said the rains were likely to continue
until Saturday.
More than 10,000 houses in East Java’s Pasuruan region were inundated
by floods, forcing people to erect tents on streets, Rustam Pakaya, head
of the health ministry’s crisis centre, said.
Jakarta, Friday, Reuters |