Floods inundate five regencies in Riau

Rizal Harahap and Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post 30 Dec 09;

Executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) Riau branch, Hariansyah Usman said the floods were caused by forest damage in the region.

Heavy downpour for the last week in Riau has inundated the province’s three main rivers, Kampar, Rokan and Indragiri, flooding at least five regencies in the region.

Kampar River, which flooded the region on Tuesday morning, has isolated 18 subdistricts in Kampar regency, five of which are in the Kampar Kiri district, while the remaining 13 are in the Kampar Kiri Hulu district.

Riau Deputy Governor Mambang Mit said the overflowing river and strong stream had cut off the only access road.

“The water level reportedly started increasing and inundating people’s houses last night. We are now documenting the number of survivors,” he said in Pekanbaru on Tuesday.

The overflowing Kampar River reportedly isolated over 370 families in Ukui and Langgam districts, Pelalawan regency, forcing them to use rafts to go out.

Similarly, in Indragiri Hulu regency, the overflowing Indragiri River inundated six districts and damaged hundreds of hectares of agricultural field.

“So far no residents are reported to have taken refuge as their houses are built on stilts. What we are more concerned about is the possibility the flood will cause harvest failures for farmers,” Mambang said.

He added that floods had also hit Rokan Hulu and Rokan Hilir regencies due to the overflowing Rokan River. In Pujud district, Rokan Hilir, the floods inundated 500 houses some 60 centimeters deep, while 400 other houses experienced similar woes in Rambah district, Rokan Hulu.

“The houses are mostly located on lower ground so water just flows into those regions,” said Mambang.

He also said the floods in Riau were mainly due to the high intensity of rain in the upper stream regions, while the regions below were unable to accommodate the water debit due to the continued heavy downpour.

A different opinion was expressed by the executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) Riau branch, Hariansyah Usman, who said the floods were caused by forest damage in the region.

He said industrial exploitation had reduced the forest by 200,000 hectares annually.

“The government has to stop blaming nature as the floods are due to uncontrolled forest damage,” Hariansyah told The Jakarta Post.

He added the only solution to deal with the annual floods was to stop issuing new concession licenses, while evaluating existing palm plantations and other industrial forests in the upper stream regions.

Separately in Yogyakarta, researcher Muh Aris Marfai from Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Natural Disaster Studies (PSBA) said that Indonesia was the third-worst hit country by floods after China and India.

Speaking at a seminar on disaster risk reduction in Jakarta, Aris said the problems related to floods in Indonesia would become more complicated in the future as they would no longer be mostly caused by overflowing rivers, but also by an increase in sea levels, such as recent floods in Semarang and Jakarta as a result of climate change.

“So far, heavy downpours and saturated soil that can no longer absorb the rainwater have accounted for floods in the country,” he said.