CIRENDEU, Indonesia: Torrential rain caused a colonial-era dam to burst outside the Indonesian capital early yesterday, sending a wall of muddy water crashing into a densely packed neighborhood and killing at least 58 people.
The flood left scores missing and submerged hundreds of homes.
Rescuers used rubber rafts to pluck bodies from streets that were transformed into rivers littered with motorcycles, chairs and other debris. Officials predicted that the death toll would rise and delivered more than 100 body bags to the scene.
“I’m devastated,” said Cholik, 21, crying as he sat next to the body of his 54-year-old mother. His brother-in-law also was killed and his 1-year-old niece was missing. “I wasn’t home last night ... I should have been there to save them,” he said.
The earthen dam, built in 1933 when Indonesia was still under Dutch rule, surrounded a man-made lake in Cirendeu on the southwestern edge of Jakarta. It collapsed just after 2 a.m. when most people were sleeping, sending 70 million cubic feet (2 million cubic meters) of water cascading into homes and leaving the lake almost completely drained.
Several survivors said it felt like they’d been hit by a “mini-tsunami.” Water levels were so high in some places that people waited on rooftops for rescuers. Telephone lines were toppled and cars swept away, some ending up hundreds of feet from where they’d been parked.
By mid-afternoon, hundreds of victims gathered at nearby Muhammadiyah University, which was transformed into a makeshift morgue.
Cecep Rahman, 63, lost his wife, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in the disaster.
“I heard a crashing sound and looked out my window,” he choked. “The tide was so strong, like a tsunami. They were swept away ... There was nothing I could do.”
