Jakarta Still Under Water, World Vision Reports

Over half of Jakarta still remains under water since the worst floods in the city's modern history hit last week.

Heavy rain in the early hours of Tuesday morning triggered another wave of flooding in the places, which had been receding the day before. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people - many of them from the lowest economic strata - remained stranded at various temporary shelters across the five Jakarta municipalities.

World Vision Indonesia National Director Trihadi Saptoadi said that "uncertainties" are the main problems, noting that "the flooding could turn even worse or to dry up in the coming days".

World Vision staff members in the Indonesian capital Jakarta teamed up Friday to organise and distribute emergency relief aid after severe floods hit the city at dawn while hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes in a desperate attempt to find a safe place to shelter.

At least 20 people have been reported killed in the disaster and 340,000 have been made homeless while all business activities in the city have ground to a halt. The floods have been described as the worst to hit Jakarta in over five years, worse than the severe floods which overwhelmed the capital city in February 2002.

All World Vision Indonesia projects in Jakarta, which are mostly based in slum areas, have suffered from the floods.

These Area Development Programmes, or ADP's, are currently funded by international support offices such as World Vision Canada, Singapore and Japan. Current estimates from the World Vision National Office show that some 3000-5000 sponsored
children may have been impacted.

The first distribution, which consisted of blankets, sarongs and raincoats were delivered to 600 affected families in Cawang neighbourhoods.

"The community at the temporary shelters greatly appreciate the assistance because they could better protect their families from the rains and cold night," said Jimmy Nadapdap, who led the distribution team.

On Saturday 3 February, the World Vision team further distributed 600 packages of family kits in the same neighbourhoods. As the floods began to affect a number of other World Vision ADP areas, the team continued to distribute much-needed blankets, sarongs, noodles, mineral water and other key items in Kebon Pala and Cilincing ADPs. By Sunday 4 February, World Vision was in the process of distributing 1,300 packages of essential baby kits in Kebon Pala area.

As reported earlier, the Meteorology and Geophysics Office predicted heavy rains would continue pounding Jakarta and its greater areas up to the next two weeks. Scores of Chinese people also believe that heavy rains would continue until the Chinese New Year on 18 February.