TEMPO.CO, Bekasi – The Bekasi administration has prepared 38 water pumps to anticipate flooding, which has been forecasted to peak this week. “They can be operated anytime,” said Dicky Irawan, the Bekasi Water Management and Road Unit chief, on Sunday, January 25, 2015.
He added two new water pumps with a capacity of 1,500 liters per second had been installed on Kali Rawa Tembaga floodgate in addition to the two existing ones. He said the new pumps were placed to ease flooding in Kayuringin area, South Bekasi.
Dicky said he had also placed additional pumps in Kartini area, East Bekasi, with a capacity 25 liters per second. A total of 32 pumps with varied capacity from 150-450 liters per second have also been set up in 12 flooding-prone districts.
Dicky said areas susceptible to flooding in Bekasi included, among others: Pondok Gede Permai (PGP) housing complex, Kemang IFI, Pondok Mitra Lestari, Villa Nusa Indah, Bumi Nasio, and IKIP Lecturers housing complex. “They are always flooded,” he said, adding there were 49 flooding spots in Bekasi.
Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi said his administration had taken a string of measures to mitigate imminent flooding, among them dismantling squatters’ houses along the municipality’s riverbanks. “This morning, we demolish squatters’ homes on Kali Baru riverbank, Pondok Melati,” he said.
ADI WARSONO
