TEMPO.CO, Semarang - Director General of Water Resources of the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry Mudijadi said that residents affected by the impacts of this year’s drought had reached 578,589 households, officials said Saturday, August 1, 2015.
He also said that water crisis now hits resident in Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara, East Java and Yogyakarta provinces.
“The cause is that drinking water for domestic need is usually taken from wells. However, the wells have dried up now,” Mudijadi said on Saturday.
Mudijadi went on to say that besides affecting the need for clean water, the drought has also affected the irrigation system and dams covering 3,296 hectares and 158,293 hectares of river basins.
In the meantime, an observation done by Water Resources Directorate General to 147 dams shows that 34 dams are in normal water condition, 69 dams experience water deficit, and 44 dams have dried up with the total water supply of around 4 billion meter cubic.
It also reported that 16 big dams with the volume of above 100 million cubic meter, nine of them are in normal condition, 5 are experiencing water deficit and 2 dams have dried up.
EDI FAISOL