Thousands in shelters as Indonesia flood death toll hits 53
Jakarta: Tens of thousands of Indonesians were still unable to return to their waterlogged homes Saturday after flooding hit the Jakarta capital region, killing at least 53 people, authorities said.
More than 170,000 people took refuge in shelters across the massive urban conglomeration -- home to some 30 million -- after whole neighbourhoods were submerged.
Torrential rains that started on New Year's Eve unleashed flash floods and landslides in the region and neighbouring Lebak at the south end of Java island. On Saturday, Indonesia's disaster agency said the death toll had climbed to 53 with one person still missing.
"We've discovered more dead bodies," said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo. Officials would be visiting the homeless Saturday in the hardest-hit areas, he added.
Shelters filled up with refugees, including infants, resting on thin mats as food and drinking water ran low. Some had been reduced to using floodwaters to clean themselves and dishes.
"We badly need clean water in this shelter," Trima Kanti said from one refuge in Jakarta's western edges.
"We're cleaning ourselves in a nearby church but the timing has been limited since it uses an electric generator for power," the 39-year-old added.
In hard-hit Bekasi, on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, swampy streets were littered with debris and crushed cars lying on top of each other -- with waterline marks reaching as high as the second floors of buildings.
The government said Friday it would start cloud seeding to the west of the capital -- inducing rain using chemicals sprayed from planes -- to prevent approaching rainfall from pounding the region.
Waters had receded in many areas and power was being restored after being cut off in hundreds of districts.
The health ministry has said it deployed some 11,000 health workers and soldiers to distribute medicine, disinfectant hygiene kits and food in a bid to stave off outbreaks of Hepatitis A, mosquito-borne Dengue fever and other illnesses, including infections linked to contact with dead animals.
Around Jakarta, a family -- including a four- and nine-year-old -- died of suspected gas poisoning from a portable power generator, while an eight-year-old boy was killed in a landslide.
Others died from drowning or hypothermia, while one 16-year-old boy was electrocuted by a power line. Jakarta is regularly hit by floods during the rainy season, which started in late November.
But this week's disaster marked Jakarta's worst flooding since 2013 when dozens were killed after the city was inundated by monsoon rains.
Urban planning experts said the disaster was partly due to record rainfall. But Jakarta's myriad infrastructure problems, including poor drainage and rampant overdevelopment, worsened the situation, they said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has announced a plan to move the country's capital to Borneo island to take pressure off Jakarta, which suffers from some of the world's worst traffic jams and is fast sinking due to excessive groundwater extraction.
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India backs 'Myanmar-led, Myanmar-owned' peace process: EAM Jaishankar
New Delhi (PTI): India supports a Myanmar-led and Myanmar-owned peace process that can deliver lasting peace and development for all in the Southeast Asian country, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.
The external affairs minister also highlighted the importance India attaches to its ties with Myanmar saying the country lies at the confluence of New Delhi's three key foreign policy priorities: 'Neighbourhood First', 'Act East', and MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions).
Myanmar is one of India's strategic neighbours and it shares a 1,640-kilometer-long border with a number of northeastern states including militancy-hit Nagaland and Manipur.
The country has been witnessing widespread violent protests after the military seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021. The military-backed party secured a victory in Myanmar's recent general election.
Jaishankar was speaking virtually at the inauguration of the Sarsobeikman Literary Centre building in the heart of Yangon. The building has been constructed with New Delhi's assistance.
"As the world's largest democracy with 1.4 billon people living together in peace and harmony, India has regularly shared its experiences in federalism and constitutionalism with stakeholders in Myanmar," he said.
"We support an inclusive, Myanmar-led and Myanmar-owned peace process, that can deliver lasting peace and development for all in Myanmar," he added.
Jaishankar said the Sarsobeikman Centre will support the conservation and study of classical and folk literatures of Myanmar, as well as translation, archival work, creative writing, and scholarly exchanges.
"Myanmar lies at the confluence of our three key foreign policy priorities - Neighbourhood First, Act East, and MAHASAGAR including the Indo-Pacific," he said.
"Our multifaceted engagement, includes political, trade, security and cultural cooperation. When it comes to development cooperation, our engagement with Myanmar has been people-centric and demand-driven, aimed towards strengthening local economies and improving lives," the minister said.
Jaishankar said India and Myanmar have been bound together for centuries by spirituality, kinship and geography, as well as by language and literature.
"As Buddhism and Pali language and literature travelled across South Asia, they carried with them ideas, texts, and a shared intellectual heritage," he said.
