Arientha Primanita Jakarta Globe 22 Sep 10;
Jakarta. As heavy rains pounded the capital, paralyzing traffic on flooded roads and inundating areas from Cawang in East Jakarta to Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta on Tuesday, Governor Fauzi Bowo said the capital did not require a disaster mitigation agency under the central government.
Fauzi pointed out that the capital had its own disaster management unit within one of the city’s offices.
The city-run Fire and Disaster Mitigation Office incorporates the Jakarta Disaster Coordinating Unit (Satkorlak PBP) and a crisis center, both designed to handle disaster contingencies.
He told reporters that creating a new disaster mitigation agency would be “too costly. Not just the establishment, but also the recruitment of the officials.”
Fauzi added that the city administration had evacuation plans for the use of parks and public facilities as meeting and shelter areas in case disaster struck.
His statement comes on the heels of the collapse of a 115-meter stretch of embankment along the West Flood Canal, which has renewed fears of land subsidence across the city.
The collapse, along a section of the canal running parallel to Jalan Sultan Agung in South Jakarta, left the embankment sagging by up to three meters in some places and leaning out at a 45-degree angle to its previous upright position.
The incident occurred in the same week that a 103-meter span of two entire lanes of the four-lane Jalan RE Martadinata collapsed and fell into the Japat River in North Jakarta before dawn on Thursday.
Had the road caved in during daylight hours, scores of cars may have ended up in the water.
On Monday, presidential aide Andi Arief said the two infrastructure failures proved that the city was in need of a special disaster mitigation agency managed by the central government.
Andi said the failure to mitigate disasters in the capital was not because they were unmanageable or extraordinary, but because of mismanagement on the part of the city.
Last month, mud slides killed three and floods inundated East Jakarta.
In 2007, massive flooding killed dozens in the capital.
Ubaidillah, the chairman of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said there should be more coordination between the central and city governments on disaster management.
He said Jakarta faced serious ecological threats, indicated by the two collapses.
Both have been preliminarily tied to natural forces as well as shoddy construction.
Ubaidillah said the city government had focused too much on commercial development and did not pay enough attention to immediate environmental concerns.
“North Jakarta will be drowned by 2030 due to land subsidence and abrasion,” he said.
