TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta administration continues to strive to resolve the problem of floods in the capital. The Water Management Agency head Teguh Hendrawan said that floods in several points were resulted from the incomplete normalization of rivers passing through Jakarta.
“It is because it has only reached 60 percent of normalization,” he said on Friday, Oct. 20.
Read: Jakarta Flood Mitigation Program is A Failure: Anies
Teguh added that the incomplete normalization is caused by several factors, one of which is related to land clearance along the river areas. In addition, he continued, river restoration program has not been implemented as seen from the residents’ behavior who still litter.
Nevertheless, Teguh ensures that floods will not strike Jakarta. He explained that floods are a pool of water that remain in an area for more than 24 hours. Up to now, such incident has not occurred since housing areas are equipped with 145 house pumps, 421 stationer pumps, and 40 mobile standby pumps which result in water to recede quickly.
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Teguh continued that 2015 data on flood reveals that there are 486 flood points when precipitation occurs in Jakarta. In the past two years, the number of the points have declined to 60 points across Jakarta. The remaining points will be dealt with once normalization of Ciliwung, Sunter, and Pesanggrahan Rivers are complete.
CHITRA PARAMAESTI