190,000 sick after Jakarta flood
Pastor Dale Morgan
190,000 sick after Jakarta flood*
February 12, 2007 03:53pm
Article from: Reuters
GARBAGE trucks were out in force on Jakarta's streets today for a huge
clean-up of the city after a devastating flood, while nearly 200,000
people were suffering from flood-related illnesses.
The vast majority of the ill were not hospitalised, said the health
ministry's crisis centre chief.
"Most of the displaced suffer from diarrhoea, dengue, severe respiratory
problems. The number of out-patients is 190,000 and in-patients is 510,"
Rustam Pakaya said.
Fears lingered that disease could spread as people stay in cramped
emergency shelters or move back into houses often lacking clean water,
plumbing and power.
However, Mr Pakaya said: "We have reduced the number of (emergency)
medical posts from 500 to 250 because most of the displaced have
returned to their places."
At the height of the flooding - caused by more than a week of serious
rains in Jakarta and surrounding areas, which finally eased off last
Friday - officials reported over 400,000 people displaced by the high water.
By today the figure had fallen to under 59,000 in Jakarta proper,
National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Management spokesman Suprawoto
said.
Jakarta has nine million people within its city limits and another five
million in the immediate area.
The flood killed 48 people within the city and 46 in adjacent West Java
and Banten provinces.
Survivors face the monumental task of clearing their homes of debris and
mud left behind by the receding water. In some neighbourhoods the mud
was as much as two metres deep.
"Jakarta has dispatched 150 garbage trucks to remove debris, mud, and
garbage from the flooded areas. Nine-thousand personnel from the army
and the police department have been deployed to help clear the areas,"
Suprawoto said.
"What we need is disinfectant, shovels, spades, hoes, school needs -
uniforms, books and so forth - (and) wheelbarrows because garbage trucks
cannot pass into small alleys," he added.
Although relatively dry weather over the last few days has improved
conditions in flooded areas, Indonesia's rainy season has several weeks
to run and could bring fresh downpours.
Officials and green groups have blamed excessive construction in
Jakarta's water catchment areas for making the floods worse, while a
deputy environment minister said last week that climate change
contributed to the problem.
Above low-lying seaside Jakarta are foothills that have lost much of
their vegetative cover to logging and construction of homes and golf
courses, making it harder for the ground to retain water from the
deluges common in the rainy season.
Some economists and government officials have warned of an inflationary
spike from the flooding, which also hit some retail and manufacturing
operations.
However, Indonesia's rupiah currency has held firm against the dollar,
while at mid-morning on Monday the Jakarta Stock Exchange's key index
was down less than 0.2 per cent.