Indonesia Farmers: Floods Destroyed Crops
Pastor Dale Morgan
Indonesia Farmers: Floods Destroyed Crops*
The Associated Press
Monday, February 12, 2007; 2:18 AM
MUARA BAKPI, Indonesia -- Farmers living outside Indonesia's flood-hit
capital said Monday they were struggling to survive after hundreds of
square miles of land were inundated, destroying rice and other recently
planted crops.
With waters receding, many returned to their washed-out fields Monday to
survey the damage.
"We lost everything," said Mahiminih, looking out at his small plot of
muddy land. "All the plants were destroyed or washed away."
Seasonal downpours last week caused rivers to break their banks in
Jakarta, a sprawling metropolis of 12 million people, covering half the
city with black, smelly water in the worst floods in recent memory.
Nearly 100 people were killed, most drowned or electrocuted, in the
capital and its two neighboring provinces, Banten and West Java, where
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono estimated 500 square miles of
land was destroyed.
As result, national rice stocks will be depleted by 370,000 tons this
month, he said. The price of Indonesia's staple food already has
skyrocketed 30 percent in some areas.
Hundreds of families who were camped out on a road alongside muddy
fields begged the government for help as others returned to small bamboo
shacks to begin the cleanup process.
"We don't have anything to eat," said Ninia, a mother of five who uses
only one name, as others desperately gathered around saying, "Noodles,
noodles."
"Please, we need rice, we need cooking oil, we need food," she said.