The disastrous floods which have hit Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, have caused widespread anger and frustration among the city’s nine million inhabitants. This has not been lessened by the airy claim of a government minister that the torrential rains were “a cyclical natural phenomenon,” the horrific results of which could not be avoided.
In 2002, similar rainfall caused substantial flooding in Jakarta and prompted a flood-relief scheme. The city authorities embarked upon the construction of the $110-million 23.7-kilometer East Flood Canal, designed to channel rainwater pouring down into the low-lying city from neighboring uplands. To date, less than eight kilometers of canal have been built and the project is not slated to be completed before 2010 at the earliest. Jakarta’s Gov. Sutiyoso who this year comes to the end of his second five-year term of office, blames delays on problems in acquiring the necessary land. Acquisition has been bedeviled by disputes over compensation payments.
With 350,000 Jakartans homeless, more than 50 deaths so far and a serious danger of disease outbreaks, it must be asked if such disputes should be allowed to stand in the way of the greater good. It is simply not good enough that the capital city of an emerging tiger economy that has successfully recovered from 1997 Asian financial crisis should find itself once again victim to devastating floods. Local media are pointing out that apart from the lack of the East Flood Canal, the natural flood plain around the city, part of which was once swamp, has been eroded by uncontrolled building as the capital has boomed. It has also been suggested that a key flood gate that might have helped disperse the floodwaters more widely was not initially opened, because it would have meant the inundation of the presidential palace. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has protested he had nothing to do with the order to keep this floodgate closed, saying that it was entirely the decision of the municipal governor.
Blame aside, it seems clear that the authorities must now devote themselves to the urgent task of completing the East Flood Canal well before 2010. They also need to initiate a thorough survey of all other factors that are contributing to the inability of heavy rains to be channeled away rapidly with minimum disruption to the city’s life. Given the steady advance of radical climate change, the challenge of torrential downpours is only going to become worse. Dismissing them as natural phenomena simply will not do.
The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans in the US demonstrates that it is not just developing economies that are failing to acknowledge the gravity of the threats they face. But as with India’s Mumbai, to be taken more seriously, fast-growing economies must show that they have the will and the ability to get the fundamentals of infrastructure right.
