Jakarta airport closed after torrential rains

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.