Indonesia Declares Karawang Floods 'Not National Disaster'

Camelia Pasandaran, Jakarta Globe 25 Mar 10;

The government on Wednesday maintained that flooding in Karawang, West Java, was not a national disaster but was a local one, despite thousands of homes having been partially inundated for days after the Citarum River overflowed its banks.

Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono described the Karawang flooding, which has seen more than 6,000 houses partially submerged under up to four meters of water, as “a local disaster, not a national one.”

“But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked the central government to give more attention to the disaster,” Agung said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.

The Karawang flooding resulted in more than 50,000 people being relocated to drier ground in trucks and rubber boats.

Social Affairs Minister Salim Segaf Al’Jufrie said the government had already provided aid and would provide more.

“Today [Thursday] we gave them Rp 500 million [$55,000],” he said.

This was in addition to Rp 200 million that had been given several days ago, Salim said. The amount of monetary aid would eventually total about Rp 1 billion and items such as tents, food and blankets would also be provided, he said.

The rest of the aid is expected to be disbursed over the next few days, he said.

“We will reconstruct the destroyed houses,” Salim said. “The local government will help.”

He added that the funding would come from the regional budget.

Salim blamed the floods on torrential rains over the past two months, which have swollen the rivers in the area.

“I hope that the rainfall and the reservoir levels will decrease,” he said.